Maple is the most popular, I never heard anyone use ebony or ironwood, as an example.My plinth, platter and armboard are made of cocobolo, which is denser than ebony and similar in density to ironwood. The plinth and platter are also loaded with multiple chambers of lead shot. The maker (sadly, no longer in the TT business) experimented with and sold TT’s made from many hardwoods, including ebony, over the course of a 5 year development project. His findings were generally that, the denser the wood, the better the sonics... for the reasons Larryi explained. I heard several iterations, owned three, and completely agree with those findings.
Maple was tried early in the development and quickly discarded as less than satisfactory when compared to denser (though admittedly more costly) options.
Larryi’s post was astute. Listen closely and try to distinguish between sound that you "like" vs. sound that is more revealing of the actual performance as recorded in the grooves. On a sufficiently revealing rig, the artificial aspects of studio recordings become apparent. A good TT reproduces the truth, whether we like it or not, and it sounds like your tweak may have gotten you a step closer.