snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
Just find a good machinist friend and have him cut you a custom heavy platter for your cheaper drive, and then suspend it from rubber bands (the entire turntable) instead of putting it on a stand or floor connected hard mount.
That's as pro as it gets. All you need to do is decide on material(s) and construction. Get the mass right and you excede their methods. Press a nice, sintered bronze bearing into it and slide it onto a hard, micro-polished center shaft, and knock 'em all dead.
Of course, my $80 plastic POS sounded just as good, as long as you played it from another room than the one with the sound playback, and put a nice $150 Ortofon cartridge on it (1984 dollars). It made scratched recordings sound good. Best cartridge I ever owned/used.