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Antonio J. wrote:

Dear Romy, thanks for your comment. I actually don't want the mat to do "something" for me sonically, but to teach me how far I'm I of my ideal. Knowing your goals and taking for granted that the 8000's platter must be rather dead sonically, I assume those mats must be quite dead also. The purpose to use some sonically dead mat is to learn if the platter I'm using now is as dead as I'm supposing (it's quite high mass at 20Kg and the surface is a carbon composite layer weighing about 5Kg). I don't use any clamp (it doesn't work as good as clamps worked on the old TT) and the plynth is not suspended. The "a priori" approach is that a dead mat would eliminate or at least "damp" some sound from the platter, but as you point, maybe the platter has some kind of sound that helps in the results I'd like to get, so in my context, it would be better not to use any mat. I'll have to check it.

I do not think that anyone would be able to “teach” and I do not thin that there is nothing to teach about the mats. A good “sounding” platter does not require any “actions” from mat and the hard rubber mats do exactly this. In fact if a platter is god then you can play a record right atop of it and it should have near the same sound as with a hard rubber mat. The problems begins what the platters sound “strange” then we begin coming up with all imaginable stupid means to get “correct sound” out of the platter buttering the platter with mats or with other bogus sound-shaping means. For instance I was very surprised recently that Micro RX-5000 has in fact quite colored platter sound. I had two RX-5000s and I did not remember any negative feelings about it. However, the one RX-5000 that I fished recently has very ringy platter. After servicing the RX-5000 and setting it up I had to figure out how to make it sound neutral. I ended up with layering a thin layer of sorbotan atop of the platter and then cover it with thick hard rubber mat. It works so far fine but I am not sure that it will be the final solution.

Antonio J. wrote:

I hope you keep us posted on your findings. Which is the heavier platter? Did you find any interesting difference in placing one TT closer to the motor than the other? Are you planning to try the 3012 on the other TT? I'll be glad knowing what combination of tonearm and stereo cartridge in that setup works for the highest dynamic contrast, I don't mean to sound louder at fffff but having more intermediate steps beween ppp and ffff. That's something that lately is obsessing me. I find my vinyl quite acceptable tonally (for my taste and exigence which probably are at a different level than yours) but I'd like it to be more "colorful" dynamically. I hope I've explained myself.

The heaviest platter is on the right, having more contact surface with the belt. So far everything is more or less OK, besides the DC motor have more work to do, suck more current form PS and head the transformer more it would like to be heated. More "colorful" dynamically? Why do you feel that it has anything to do with combination of tonearm and a cartridge?

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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