Has anyone else heard the Walker BD V?

The footers now have a regulated air supply ( adjustable ) the clamp now has a brass locking collet and lead damping in addition to " magic crystals " under the clamp on the tone arm and the motor controller that defy reasonable explanation, but the sum is a deepening of soundstage improved definition and lowering of noise floor that is quite impressive.
Also the belt, damping fluid and motor block feet have been upgraded.
All these little things that add up to large improvements

And the one I heard, about 10 years ago in the home of my neighbor, with Lloyd himself presiding, cost around $40,000 at that time. That was before the carbon fiber stuff got added, I think. In the beginning, it was a highly tweaked Mapleknoll. The Mapleknoll roots are still easy to recognize, $95,000 later. This is not a bad thing; those were great turntables, but they lacked the precision of machining, quality of parts and assembly, that you see in the Walker table.

At 98,500 k the Walker would have to be one of the best.

I remember seeing the original Walker table back in 1999 at the Chicago Stereophile show for $14,999 :-)

To the uninitiated, what are the updates to footers and record clamp (of all things) that could effect a "huge leap forward"? I have heard the BD turntable in someone else's system, and I certainly agree it is among the best, probably THE best, in my rather limited experience of megabuck designs. So, what makes this latest version so much better? Thanks.

Lloyd is among the most canny of all manufacturers in developing simple tweaks that really work.

I know Lloyd for 17 years and there is no telling how much further he can take his fantastic TT. Yes, his most recent improvements in footer air suspension, record clamp, etc are a huge leap forward in what was already a world class cutting edge design.