Good you made the effort to assess the effects of the clamp but as with all things in audio sometimes things don't work out as expected. It is one of the reasons my system has stayed similar for a very long time, if it aint broke why fix it? I have experimented in every area multiple times - different amps, cartridges, turntables, cables etc and found most of the time the presentation and performance of my system went sideways or sometimes backwards and certainly not too my liking.

However tweaking room acoustics and vibration control has simply bought out the best in my system and enhanced the listening experience so they are areas that should always be constantly evaluated.

I see on another forum their is great excitement over sound decoupling devices for speakers and possibly turntables that may have some efficacy so I may try that avenue sometime but vibration modification can be a double edged sword and not always guaranteed to give you a better result as you found with your bearing clamp ? Too much control and you end up in a place that may not be where you find sonic nirvana , yes more control but not always better. I experienced this with damping material in my amps.

One area however I think you can never have enough control is vibration getting through to your turntable/ cartridge. Here I think you can go on forever looking for solutions.