Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

No one can assail Thuchan's stated preference based on his listening, but I tend to agree with Geoch; using the felt mat will certainly change the sound from that of the bare copper mat. However, if one does not like the bare copper mat, I believe the better cure would be to get rid of it in favor of a mat made of some other material. I am not sure that the impedance mismatch between a vinyl LP and copper is any worse than the impedance mismatch between felt and a vinyl LP. But that's the key, as Geoch says, IMO. Now Halcro mentions a pigskin mat on top of copper. That may be a completely different story vs felt. (Where the heck did you get a pigskin mat, Halcro?) I like the idea that the LP will probably not slip on pigskin, nor should the pigskin move against the surface of the platter. Also, the impedance of pigskin is likely quite different from that of felt, when matched with a metal like copper. I use the SAEC SS300 mat on my SP10. I have no idea what metal(s) its made of; I read once that it is an "alloy" of something. I tend to like it but I am open-minded about other materials that in principle may have merit, like graphite (or pigskin?).

I once owned a SOTA with a felt mat. Every turntable I have owned since then has sounded better to me in terms of ability to separate notes and musical lines and in bass definition particularly, so I am biased against felt, even though I think the main problem with the SOTA was a stretch-y belt.

Hi Lew,
The pigskin mat I purchased from Tommy at Topclass
SUEDE
It is paper-thin and IMHO.....a perfect partner for the Micro Cu180 platter mat.

Dear Geoch,
Are you saying that because we don't fully understand the principles governing that which we hear through our systems, we should not believe our ears?

Dear Halcro, are you imply that your system set-up is neutral to the bone? and therefore it is impossible to hide inaccuracies which can drives you to mask because you can not understand their origin?
ie : arm wiring, IC, speaker and power cables and even their connectors, rack, shelfs and even the surface of contact that reacting as an interface with your items and lets not forget the selection of components inside your items and how they interact as a company and of course the cartridge/arm & phono stage interface.
It is funny how easy we can perceive a cure only with the hope that it can manage to hide the problem. I know people with 104db horns who are in search for the most slow & fat sounding capacitors (among others) in order to escape from reality.

Dear Halcro, I really appreciate your exploring mood and I admire your efforts but sometimes we must keep a second thought for what we've done even if the resulting effect is to our liking, we have to put in doubt those cheaters that may cover up the real problem. Imagine someone who has an agressive HF and covers the tweeter with a blanket instead of looking at the source of this anomaly. In every idea that I spread, my motivation is to give you some reluctancy in order to secure the right path in your experimental nature. Please do not accept my reservations as disrespect for your adventures. The lack of confidence is a must when the knowlege is restricted. Our ears can only acknowledge the problem and suggest the perceived outcome but the solution is detected by our relentless search while we maintain discipline over restricted regulations. ie : if my armboard is ringing, I have to choose another material and stop trying to damp it by wraping the hell out of it. There are rules for us to follow if we want to progress with integrity.

Dear Halcro, Prompted by Geoch's posts above, I read up the thread from there and came to your post about the unusual behavior of your motor/platter with the 1.8kg M-S copper mat on it. What is the weight of your platter alone? If the weight of the Cu mat is a significant fraction of the total weight of the platter, what you are observing means to me that the brake mechanism of the TT101 simply cannot stop the platter "dead', because of the increased momentum of the platter/mat combo. This alone would not trouble me, but it could also mean that the servo system might be "confused" by the increased rotating mass during LP play, so at the micro level, the speed control with the copper mat might be subpar. It is a fact that these systems were designed as a whole; the servo is calibrated to the mass of the stock platter/mat. I have repeatedly mentioned this; super heavy mats on a direct drive might not be such a good idea for that reason. (And then if one adds one of those 4 or 5 kg record weights, one is making the situation worse and also inviting rapid bearing wear.) What I like about the SAEC SS300 metal mat is that it weighs about the same as the stock Technics rubber mat on the SP10 Mk2A and Mk3 (they use the exact same rubber mat), so screwing up the servo is not an issue.