Dwette, You have a platter that is designed to transfer the vibrations imparted in the record by the stylus tracking the groove, precisely how Atmasphere described. POM was chosen because it matches the characteristics of vinyl so energy is transferred readily from the record to the platter instead of being reflected back at the boundary. A clamping system can further improve the transfer of energy, but whether this will improve the sound is a matter of system synergy and personal raste. |
@inna Is it for someone else (emphasis added)? I read the paper at the Boston Audio site. IMO there was some stuff in it that didn't seem to add up. In particular they mentioned something about overdamping, causing the sound to be 'bland, lifeless sound'. You can't overdamp the LP. You can very easily damp certain frequencies while others are damped less. That results in tonal aberrations and leads to the myth that the LP was somehow 'overdamped' which is impossible. One way things often go awry is if the platter pad is a different durometer (hardness) than the LP. They must be the same otherwise some frequencies will be reflected back to the LP. The article is critical of acrylic. The thing about acrylic is it can be too hard or too soft depending on how its made. It can also be just right. Hence my support of the Oracle product. Now there is one other thing you might be able to look at. The platter itself should be damped. If you get it right you can walk up to the turntable and thwock the platter while its playing and not hear it in the speaker. If doing that results in a sound that means airborne bass notes are affecting it too. If teh bass isn't right nothing else is either. There are materials that can be used to damp a platter. Each platter is different so its on a case by case basis. Technics bothers to damp the platter of their SL1200G (the old ones were not damped). We went through a bit of work damping the platter of our model 208. Since there was a good way to apply it, we were able to use a 3M damping compound called DP108 which is a 2 part epoxy that cures soft. It was very effective in our case but won't work in every application. If you can really get the turntable and platter properly damped that's really where you start. To that end the turntable should be perched on a competent anti-vibration platform. |
Without really thinking it through systematically, I kind of went through a similar thought process to this several years ago, which I will try to remember and report here as a case study. It all started with a VPI Prime. It came with stellar reviews and I was all excited about it, but the thing really was meh. So what to do? Well right away I figured out that it was off speed so I bought a Roadrunner/Eagle tach and digital controller from Phoenix to stabilize the motor. Then I talked to Harry and bought a second arm, the second one metal which sounded better and facilitated cartridge changes. Counter-Intuitives from SoundSmith made cartridge changes easier. Then I added 3 belts, which tightened up the pace and timing. Then Harry developed the stabilizer mod for the arms, which helped. All of this did improve the overall performance, the weight, scale and dynamics of the turntable if you will. But I never felt like it reached the level of performance that I wanted. The solution was to trade it for the just introduced HW-40, which has met or exceeded my expectations ever since. While all that was going on I also had an HW-19 in an older system that met expectations as well as a Technics SL1200 in a less demanding roll both still with me today. |
Ralph, I am sure you are right, but I only compared Boston mat to the felt mat and the improvement was striking, in fact. I bought that mat, to begin with, because almost every Nottingham Spacedeck owner highly recommended it, and they were right. Perhaps, there are better mats for this table, I just never explored this further. |
