So many great golden era DD tables out there, what do you recommend for $1000?

produce a mat made of an animal skin is horrible, would you use a human skin instead ? 

produce a mat made of an animal skin is horrible

Do you not wear leather shoes....?
Or sit on leather seats in a car or at home...?
And if you’re vegetarian....do you chastise all the meat-eaters for creating the leftover useless skins?

Oh my, the thread went from Vintage DD turntables to a moral discussion on utilization of animal byproducts. I'm not going to weigh in on that, but here are some other recommendations: The Pioneer PL 600 (not the more recent plastic version), which is full auto, but has a decent arm and a suspended sub chassis.The Pioneer PL 71 is a more common consumer table than the PL 70. Full manual, dual plinth and very robust. Aesthetically, I would love to find a decent Sansui SR 828 or 929. I have seen them both for under $1000. I used to sell these, back in the day, and had a customer buy a slightly ratty floor model of the SR 828 who then replaced the arm with an Infinity Black Widow. He raved about it. 

Cmon Chak
Thats just plain silly!

There have been leather and deerskin mats for sale and been used for donkeys years!
Its not new at all!
Not seen pigskin previously but not really much different in idea.

Dear @uberwaltz : The JVC QLA/ is not your best option and disagree with halcro. I linked to you the Yamaha GT750 that use a JVC motor but way better motor than the QL one, that was done under Yamaha specifications certainly it’s not the same QL one.

GT 750 S/N is -82db vs QL -74 db and GT W&F is 0.006% vs QL only a mediocre 0.025.

But the Yamaha tonearm is superb and is the same tonearm than the Yamaha top of the line TT series GT2000 that goes to megabucks price range. Take a look to the links I posted about that includes a review. Inclusive the GT750 is heavy than the QL by around 5kg.. All those have a meaning of quality between both TTs.

You can do what you want it but ? ? ? Up to you.

R.