02-14-13: Vicdamone
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After reading your tweaks I think I'm going to give them a shot. Thank you very much.
Here is a picture of my SL1210 M5G and the tweaks I've made.
o The tonearm has the KAB fluid damper and is wrapped in Teflon pipe thread tape
o The headshell is an LPGear ZuPreme.
o The platter has an Oracle Groove Isolator sorbothane mat. I'm sure any good damping mat would work.
o The standard feet have been replaced with a Dayton speaker spike set. Available in various finishes, the black chrome is a great match with the Technics. At $29.95 they're a stone cold bargain for a set of four solid brass cones. The supplied threads are an exact fit for the threaded sleeves on the underside of the Technics. I unscrewed and removed the cones' adjustable tips to truncate the cones and create a concave bottom.
o The concave bottoms fit perfectly on the steel balls of the Vibrapod Cones, which then rest atop Vibrapod #2 Isolators. if you want to simplify, just unscrew the stock Technics feet and rest the threaded sleeves on the balls of the Vibrapod cones. This alone has a significant effect on lowering the noise floor and adding inner detail.
o I sit this whole mess on top of a 3-1/2" thick maple butcher block cutting board. I used to use an inexpensive 1-1/2" thick cutting board from Ikea. Moving up to this massive board ($100 or less from overstock.com) made a quite noticeable difference which my wife described immediately after the change.
Under the cutting board is a pair of computer keyboard wrist pads made of silicon gel.
Yes, it's a bit convoluted, but it actually looks pretty nice and the whole stack of cones, pads, and cutting board total about $200, less than a typical retail vibration isolation platform and more versatile. This enables me to take advantage of the Technics' outstanding torque and speed accuracy while minimizing its weaknesses in vibration control and isolation.