A person I know used to have the tag line, "different is easy, better, not so much" I suspect this can apply to mats also.
I bought my third table second hand, its a base model Brinkmann Bardo, I put an Audiomods Series Six arm on it and an Ortofon A90.
Brinkmann has an upgrade for their table where they have an integrated glass fiber mat, the base model has an integrated acrylic mat. Previous owner included a carbon fiber mat from TTW in this purchase. I used the table with the mat in place, and it indeed did sound nice, but the sound was a bit restrained, and I was honestly thinking it was the Ortofon.
Well yesterday I did two things. I removed the carbon fiber mat in order to evaluate the table in pure stock form, which is what I should have done to start with. The sound was far more immediate and present. I then installed 4 magnetic lev feet, these happen to be the Ebay sourced ones, so nothing terribly expensive. Once the table was balanced, I went through music and the level of resolution and transparency took off. To be honest the sound exceeded my expectations of what I thought this combination would be capable of. The sound is absolutely captivating, this is supposed to be my casual listening table, but its come to point where it could be as good as anything I own.
Guess the point is that not every mat is an improvement, even an expensive high tech one.
I bought my third table second hand, its a base model Brinkmann Bardo, I put an Audiomods Series Six arm on it and an Ortofon A90.
Brinkmann has an upgrade for their table where they have an integrated glass fiber mat, the base model has an integrated acrylic mat. Previous owner included a carbon fiber mat from TTW in this purchase. I used the table with the mat in place, and it indeed did sound nice, but the sound was a bit restrained, and I was honestly thinking it was the Ortofon.
Well yesterday I did two things. I removed the carbon fiber mat in order to evaluate the table in pure stock form, which is what I should have done to start with. The sound was far more immediate and present. I then installed 4 magnetic lev feet, these happen to be the Ebay sourced ones, so nothing terribly expensive. Once the table was balanced, I went through music and the level of resolution and transparency took off. To be honest the sound exceeded my expectations of what I thought this combination would be capable of. The sound is absolutely captivating, this is supposed to be my casual listening table, but its come to point where it could be as good as anything I own.
Guess the point is that not every mat is an improvement, even an expensive high tech one.