As a prior owner of a VPI Scout, I wholeheartedly agree that a maple plinth greatly increased the potential of the Scout. I was quite underwhelmed by the Scout when I first purchased it and had it situated on the MDF shelf of my Billy Bags rack. The maple platform transformed the sound for the better. Much more fulsome sound, better bass, more fleshed out tonal density. Never tried it on a hard glass or granite shelf, so I can't offer any perspective on that situation.
Shelf for VPI scout
I received the Mapleshade catalogue in the mail the other day and was reading about the claimed benifits of 2" air dried maple shelf for a TT's. my TT sits on a VTI rack of only average quality and has glass shelves. It's not as stable as I'd like as I can push on the rack at the top and it rocks ever so slowly for once or twice before stoping. If I'd have to call it I'd say like 2hz or so. What I'm curious about is Mapleshade says that glass sucks the bass out of a TT, but on a maple shelf this is not so. Why is this?