I'm on team clamp. I don't like the idea of gratuitous weight on the turntable bearing.

The clamp or weight is basically used to keep the vinyl in place.  The weight apparently can also flatten a slightly warped album. I currently use a Clearaudio clamp which is not really a clamp and it is also not weighted. I do have a weight but the weight seems to me to add to the abuse of the motor/spinner which I don't think can be good. A clamp screws on to the spindle and I don't think I want to go in the direction either.

Does vinyl sound better than digital these days?  Well, to me, it definitely sounds different.  My digital path is complete for me and I've got an itch to do something so I've been tinkering with vinyl for the last half year or so.

However, vinyl is more fun in group settings like it was back in the day.  You friends over, you put on some vinyl, you look at the vinyl cover and the artwork, and then you trip down memory lane.  Not so much with a CD or streaming.

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Indeed. Mine is. Both the platter and the linear tracking arm are supported by air.

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Agree that good digital vs. analog is more "different" rather than "better" these days. There is a lot going on with both, esp. if you stream and want to pursue an "audiophile" network connection. I don't stream (long story) but my CDs and files sound so good these days, and are so convenient that I haven't spun an album in months. I blame you for a lot of that because you turned me on to Denafrips.

These are all questions for Mikey Freemer!  I'm sure he could write a long story on the subject.

I have had vinyl rigs for many years.  There have been some nicer equipment here.  Had a VPI cleaning machine, all the chemicals, special liners for the cleaned records.

Up until recently digital could not compete with vinyl for sound quality.
In todays world digital sounds pretty darn good to me.

Two years ago I gifted my complete vinyl setup and record collection to a young music lover.  Just trying to "Pay it Forward".  No regrets!

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I don't want to be snarky but if the weight added a little more wear on the bearing or/and belt and/or motor how would you expect to hear it? I'll claim that just like tubes that (very) slowly degrade over time the only realistic way to tell may be to compare to new TT of the same make and model. And to be clear I'm not saying that a weight does anything bad for sure, esp. if you only have a table for a few years before you move on. But I've had mine for almost 40, and replaced the belt a couple of times, so for my money I'm happy not to add any more stress to the system, whether or not it actually makes a difference. JMO/YMMV/FWIW and all that.

Kamran,

The idea of using a power supply or speed controller for your TT probably has as much to do with the particular rig that it is being used with. I just bought a little Project Speed box for my belt driven TT. I have not used it yet for reasons unknown. I actually believe that it would be better if a power supply/speed control had a feedback loop like used in many DD TT.
As for the sound of vinyl vs digital, all things being equal, I am impressed as to how far some digital has come and glad for it.

I have used both. My old Thorens had a threaded spindle and it was easy to use a clamp. It had been modified.
My favorite table is forty years old as one mentioned above and if it was easy to add a clamp, I would prefer that method of stability, but with that table I just use a light weight out of mainly convenience.

I also do not notice a lot of difference with or without the weight, unless I am playing something with heavy bass content OR a classical piece with very quiet passages at times.

I'm not sure how adding the weight improves a typical album, but I feel it is like additional mass, up to the point of dimishing returns, just seems to stabilize some moving things.

I have noticed that when using the weight on some bass heavy music albums, the close proximity of speakers to cartridge/tonearm tends to feedback at super low frequencies considerably less than if I skipped the weight, altogether.

I know my speakers can not reproduce these tones (I would consider them as distortion) and I can not hear the tones with just my ears, BUT, I can certainly hear in the music the ill effect of the ULF beginning to create a tone loop of feedback, if that begins to happen through excess volume during playback.
I have a very heavy sand box I made to isolate the table (old school trick) from these frequencies and it works well, handles most of the interference, and the weight on the vinyl takes the isolation from ULF one step further.

In other words, I can get my system much louder with my bass heavy metal albums with the weight on before any perceptible interference occurs.

I know most do not worry about some of this, but a few of us still have a wild head banger vein throbbing at times for me to drop the reins and let it buck!