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Huge free upgrade in sound quality

jgordon

jgordon

Super Member
Well, I haven't usually chimed in on tweaking discussions as my setup is so hampered (ss amp, 40 feet of cable to each speaker for crappy new york apartment reasons, etc) but I was on elusive disc ordering new sleeves and I decided to take a look at tt mats.

Then I decided to read about them here. As you may have guessed, there are endless debates on which is best. I was going to pull the trigger on a ringmat for the hell of it, when I read Marc MC's post in the "special turntable mats" thread:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3022543&postcount=81

I thought to myself "hey, I have some dots of various materials lying around, what could it harm?

So I used these non-skid dots, without even taking the paper backing off:
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And replaced my old, slightly misshapen felt mat:
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As follows:
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As I said, I didn't even stick them to the platter.

So I've always read people's descriptions of sonic improvements with a bit of skepticism, the way I regard higher level discussions of wine. Well, no longer.

The dots add clarity, airiness, dimension, the highs are higher, the bass has more kick, there's more distinction between instruments, everything has been improved.

I'll leave a scratched disc on them overnight to see if there's any chemical leaching or imprinting. if not, I'll likely pick up a few more and create a pattern the way Marc MC did, to support the entire disc.

Man, what an improvement. I'm on cloud 9.
 

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Was the thickness the same as the old mat? Did you alter the VTA?

Not knocking it as I've been meaning to try it.
 
No offense taken, I'd ask the same thing. Thickness is almost identical between the felt and one of these dots. It cost me nothing to try, as I had them lying around.

For the $1.99 a pack of these things costs, I would go for it. Try cork as well, that's my next experiment. When I find a material I'm happy with, I'll stick them to the platter.
 
Careful with how many you use, the more there are on the the platter the less air will be under the record. Don't want to lose that airiness.

Can't beat the price. Nice upgrade.
 
I'm honestly not sure what the material is. Some sort of medium-density foam. I've owned these for several years, and there's still a faint plastic smell to them, so I'm a bit concerned about leaching, as has been noted with other materials (non-skid shelf liner, for example). I'll leave a disc on them overnight and note any marking. I'll also stop by the hardware store where I got them, and if they are available, I'll buy some and take a picture of the brand/packaging.

I'm literally sitting here with a grin on my face, listening to some of my favorite albums with a whole new appreciation. Graceland is my main reference album, and it's blowing me away (as Paul's blowing against the wind).
 
I noticed you have a Linn deck, did you try the felt mat on both sides because one side of the felt mat does sound better than the other. That is a known fact. If the new mat sounds better than the Linn felt, good for you!
 
I gave it a try tonight.

The jury agrees that it is an improvment, but they are still out on how much.
It is better with dire straits.

Danny.
 
Went back to the hardware shop. This is the packaging that I bought originally. $6.50 tax included for the kit, which inclueds dots of various materials (foam, vinyl and cork) and various sizes. Not a bad tweaking kit.

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There's a website on the back: www.doitbest.com


I'm playing around with various patterns and different sizes. I suspect (for no good reason at all) that I'll end up with the larger dots in an X (or a cross, depending on your religious beliefs) on the outer platter, and the smaller dots in an offset (by 45*) X on the inner platter.

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I tried the X on the inner platter, and it seemed to diminish sound quality marginally. But I'm concerned about supporting the disc evenly. Valid concern?
 

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I tried both sides of the linn mat. One sounded slightly better than the other, but neither sounds as good as dots. It really seems as if the data stream of music coming at you has been "expanded," giving more room to each note, more clarity, and expanding the overall frequency range at which the music is being delivered. If that makes sense.
 
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The 4 + 4 in same layout is what I tried earlier today
Presentation is different tomy standard mat but I then added a weight 260 gram & thought the sound improved again in being less resonant - like the stylus tracked better - only subtle small differences but they add up.
 
Congrats on your find jgordon,

I can't tell you how freaky it is to read your findings after all these years. I still remember reading the Ed Meitner article 25 years ago on platterless playback. And the different things I tried as a result.

TT's were king in those days and I soon learned to keep my mouth shut about any platterless ideas I had. It was so anti establishment and few wanted to hear about it. And even less were willing to try it.

The pod idea is different and dates back to the skeleton tables. I use the pods on my rega because It's easy. My Diy table is fully platterless and is the result of my journey with a Thorens 318. It is far better than the Rega. My other tables are unmodded for a lack of motivation and I will spend the next several years climbing the tt ladder up.

marc mc
 
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I am surprised by these results really. I thought the platter mat was made to dampen moter noise and platter ring. I see why the dots would work well, but it would seem that you would hear more noise from the deck itself. or maybe mine is just louder :-(
 
Marc,

Glad you weighed in. Always nice to see your experiments being taken to heart and appreciated by others. I'm still debating the two extremes of the debate - care to weigh in?

Keith,

My deck is an extremely quiet one, as I found out in the "how quiet is a quiet groove?" thread. No appreciable noise up through volumes which I would never see in day-to-day listening.

I'm honestly not sure why the dots work. Most of the threads around here focus on clamping the record down and making it as much "one" with the platter as possible. It's possible that there's some sort of bell-shaped frequency response curve, where being attached to the platter 100% is good, and detached 100% is good, and some sort of quasi-interface isn't as good.

I ended up with the original four-dot design. I tried it with the smaller dots, and the presentation was muffled. I also tried it with the 4 by 4 setup a few posts back, and the highs were muffled. Four dots in the middle of the outer platter works best.

The presentation is definitely a lot brighter than it was with the felt mat. Before I stuck the dots to the platter, there was so much "punch" to the bass that I could see it resulting in listening fatigue. Taking off the backing paper and sticking them to the platter reduced the brightness. The felt had a much smoother, yet less detailed presentation. I'm still evaluating.

Any thoughts on total detachment (platterless) vs. total mating of the disc and the platter (weight and outer ring, for example)? Is it a DD vs. suspended, or metal platter vs. acrylic separation?

I'm all ears, as I'm learning as I go.
 
interesting tweaks with interesting results :thmbsp: also interesting to see that further isolation of the record from the platter on a suspended design makes such a noticable difference...

although i'm wondering if decoupling the record as much as possible doesn't increase the chance of undamped resonances in the record itself being created as the stylus wiggles in the groove ?... doesn't hurt to try a reversible tweak though..:thmbsp:

on my own suspended deck i've had better sonic luck with the standard heavy rubber mat than felt mats ( i tried the rega mat on my ariston as an experiement and wasn't happy with the sudden loss of bass definition and low end power resulting in a thin sound)...

i did find that an akai direct drive benefits from as much decoupling of the record from the platter as possible in terms of rumble and external vibrations....(the standard akai mat itself has raised rubber support extruded 'lines' radiating out from the centre to minimise the surface area contact between record,platter mat and platter itself(the underside of the mat has raised concentric rings also to provide further decoupling)... so perhaps they too were aware of the advantages of decoupling the record from the platter..

good that you found a cheap way to improve a linn though :thmbsp: might try those dots myself :scratch2:
 
I would expect that 5 points of support might be better than 4. Just like better office chairs have 5 wheels. Also there's the greek order of Doric columns divided in 5ths, nature abhors even numbers, etc, etc. But then again Transcriptors have 6 points of support. Try 5, try 6.
 
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