This stands to reason. When I think about the tiny rock bouncing around the microscopic groove, it is easy to imagine that any vibration must interfere with its trajectory. And since its trajectory is the signal, messing with that signal is only going to amplify and magnify the noise.
So dampening is the way to go. Are there any photos on the net illustrating how does a well dampened underbelly of Systemdek IIX look like? I'd like to do it, but I don't want to mess things up.