ANOTHER series of mat/clamp comparisons.

[Balle Clorin]

Thinking about how a doctor use liquid gel when doing ultrasonic imaging. The gel transmit the vibration in both direction by a tight coupling minimising the skin interface disturbance. So a the interface matters , but it is not clear for me if the interface should be closer to the record properties or platter properties.. should it absorb the vinyl vibrations or transmit them, I think maybe the last.. when wil someone try liquid gel under their record

It seems like most rubber mats are made to damp and isolate motor and chassis/bearing noise from reaching the vinyl/cartridge, and not care about vibrations in the record caused by the stylus

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thinking about how a doctor use liquid gel when doing ultrasonic imaging. The gel transmit the vibration in both direction by a tight coupling minimising the skin interface disturbance. So a the interface matters , but it is not clear for me if the interface should be closer to the record properties or platter properties.. should it absorb the vinyl vibrations or transmit them, I think maybe the last.. when wil someone try liquid gel under their record

It seems like most rubber mats are made to damp and isolate motor and chassis/bearing noise from reaching the vinyl/cartridge, and not care about vibrations in the record caused by the stylus

Comparison of soft mat (Stack) versus hard mat (Spec) should be very interesting.
Right now, I cannot identify one area that the Stack is poor at or identifies it's in the system.
The very definition of neutral and transparent.

 

[mtemur]

Thinking about how a doctor use liquid gel when doing ultrasonic imaging. The gel transmit the vibration in both direction by a tight coupling minimising the skin interface disturbance. So a the interface matters , but it is not clear for me if the interface should be closer to the record properties or platter properties.. should it absorb the vinyl vibrations or transmit them, I think maybe the last.. when wil someone try liquid gel under their record

It seems like most rubber mats are made to damp and isolate motor and chassis/bearing noise from reaching the vinyl/cartridge, and not care about vibrations in the record caused by the stylus

In ultrasonic imaging the operator uses a gel specifically to eliminate the air gap. The gel provides a denser transmission medium with acoustic impedance very close to that of human tissue, allowing ultrasound waves to pass efficiently into the body.

Ultrasound requires transmission of sound through the medium.

With turntables, we want the exact opposite. We don’t want vibration passing from the platter into the record. The goal is to block transmission, not facilitate it. Isolating is the key word, not damping but isolating because when you damp you probably absorb the vibration generated by the stylus. It’s the sound carved in the grooves, which we want to keep. So the principles are fundamentally reversed.

 

[Balle Clorin]

My point of concern was not vibrations from the sourroundings to the record, but the vibrations in the vinyl record generated from the stylus., ie reflections caused from that and muddying the reproduction from the grooves.

It is clear that if vibrations can travel from the record to the platter, the opposite will happen too, but what is the worst problem? It has always been focus on the path from sourroundings to as they has been regarded as the main problem, maybe correctly, I am just wondering .If we prevent vibrations from platter to record we would also prevent vibrations from record to platter, which may not be desirable. …
4 different rubber and sorbothane mat has had no difference in impact of my ruble/ motor noise. It seem that the noise is coming from TT to stylus regardless of mat or not, which is not the conventional wisdom. All Hifi News test show reduced rumble with a rubber mat.

If we isolate and limit the path from platter to record, will not that not have a side effect of making the vibration on the record worse? That is we’re I am curious,Maybe I am just going is circles in my private rabbit hole..

 

[spiritofmusic]

Hexmat Absolute mat/clamp and Black Forest Audio Däd!Mät/Clämp arrived today, in time for some listening comparisons over the weekend, against the Stack duo.
Some brief initial impressions show the audible effects of these three and my existing Acoustic Revive mat/Origin Live puck to be quite different sounding from each other.

 

[Barry]

The bottom side is not scratched up. I do replace records on the fly. That's a minor pet peeve as you can end up getting the both record and the mat at lift off if you're not careful. I really like this mat - no added artifacts that I can hear.

 

[djsina2]

The bottom side is not scratched up. I do replace records on the fly. That's a minor pet peeve as you can end up getting the both record and the mat at lift off if you're not careful. I really like this mat - no added artifacts that I can hear.

The new version is smaller diameter so you don’t accidentally grab the mat. Maybe my platter has a more coarse surface than yours. I agree, great sounding mat.

 

[Balle Clorin]

So I noticed that on my kitchen turntable the change of mat seemed to affect the frequency response lowering the high frequency resonance..
her is the comparison measurement . The original mat is 5mm, the soft sticky Sorbothane is 3mm, so the VTA is changed, I cannot compensate for that....but anyway a quite obvious change occurs when swapping mat



'

Use this to make your own sweeps...

SJPlot Online

sjplot.com

 

[spiritofmusic]

So I noticed that on my kitchen turntable the change of mat seemed to affect the frequency response lowering the high frequency resonance..
her is the comparison measurement . The original mat is 5mm, the soft sticky Sorbothane is 3mm, so the VTA is changed, I cannot compensate for that....but anyway a quite obvious change occurs when swapping mat
View attachment 161120


'

Use this to make your own sweeps...

SJPlot Online

sjplot.com

If you can't change VTA, then doesn't this render your experiment and any data from it as not meaningful?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Next up on these mat/weight comparisons is the Black Forest Audio Däd/Mät with Däd/Clämp from Germany.
The mat is a 5mm thick infinity bubbles hard foam faced with two thin plastic surfaces, the clamp is a two-step locking mechanism plastic affair.
Photos up next...

 

[spiritofmusic]

 

[spiritofmusic]

This is a very nicely realized mat and clamp system, and I suspect some extra benefit in this system with having the LP more secured to the clamp than either of the loose fitting Stack Serene or Origin Live pucks.
And this Däd/Mät Däd/Clämp system again like the Stack duo is more neutral and resolving than my old stock Reso-mat or the Acoustic Revive/Origin Live that I had been using.
In the final analysis, it doesn't go quite as far, or in a different direction sonically to the Stack mat and stabilizer.
So, it's sound is very similar to the Stack, neutral, transparent and tonally dense, suggesting it's an excellent design, and will have advantages over other brands, but the Stack duo after some extensive comparisons with these has the edge on resolution, tone and overall musicality.
But, it's a very close call, and I can imagine in many systems, especially where a screw down system would benefit a system, that this Däd/Mät Däd/Clämp combo would be preferable to the Stack.
I'm really seeing in platter mats/weights that system dependent and YMMV were never more true.

 

[Balle Clorin]

If you can't change VTA, then doesn't this render your experiment and any data from it as not meaningful?

Well I have to find mats with equal thickness to compare , or move the experiment to the turntable with Variable VTA. Anyway people will swap mats with different thickness with it without VTA correction so my experiment kind of confirms that differences occur, objectively.

 

[spiritofmusic]

There's no doubt one can make fairly meaningful comparisons without *absolute* need for VTA to be correct each time. Just unsure what the data like a frequency response graph would look like with VTA correct v incorrect.
Bearing in mind I'm trying five mats in total (incl my current one) varying from 7mm thick all the way down to...1.6mm.

 

[Balle Clorin]

I think it is interesting to consider the effect of material reflections.

My Delrin platter has a Acoustic impedance 3.5 while a vinyl record is 3-3.3 and and steel 42 and rubber about 2.

the consequence is that coupling the record to my Delrin platter will transmit 99,5 to 99.9 of the record vibrations to the platter= almost none reflections, while a steel platter will reflect 70%, and transmit 30%..Aluminium is better with an impedance of 17

In the other direction Delrin will be a poor insulator for noise from bearing platter going towards the stylus

AI content was removed. As a reminder, AI content will not be tolerated at the WBF. We would rather hear from members. >>> https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-of-ai-as-part-of-the-post.40257/post-1031605


Sorry , was not aware of that, the fact still remains the property of the materials determine how much is transmitter and reflected , it is explained here . If finally made me understand what acoustic Impedence is…and how that related to platter-mat-record interface. See at 14 minutes

 

[spiritofmusic]

Surely if vibrations will transmit 99.5-99.9% from vinyl LP to the Delrin platter due to their high familiarity of materials, that means only 0.01-0.05% will go to the stylus?
That's a good thing, yes?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Have a golden opportunity to compare these mats against one I've heard before that's uniformly excellent, being kindly lent to me by a good friend and member here. Will be an excellent chance to really broaden the terms of comparison, other than super heavy mats like copper, gunmetal and graphite, I'll have a pretty wide experience re sonics of the alternatives out there.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Surely if vibrations will transmit 99.5-99.9% from vinyl LP to the Delrin platter due to their high familiarity of materials, that means only 0.01-0.05% will go to the stylus?
That's a good thing, yes?

Yes,that is my point , less reflection from record to the platter back to vinyl record and stylus, but at the same time 99% of platter noise from belt or drive will be transferred to the record.. the Stylus gets what it gets .. the force on the stylus=force to the record,!The cartridge itself is highly inefficient only 1-5% of the energy from the grove/stylus is converted to an electrical signal
If the materials vinyl and patter/mat are similar and tightly coupled the mass of the platter and record behaves as one and have a total high mass that will not vibrate as easily, so the cartridge can read the groove with less disturbances

 

[spiritofmusic]

Yes,that is my point , less reflection from record to the platter back to vinyl record and stylus, but at the same time 99% of platter noise from belt or drive will be transferred to the record.. the Stylus gets what it gets .. the force on the stylus=force to the record,!The cartridge itself is highly inefficient only 1-5% of the energy from the grove/stylus is converted to an electrical signal

Like humans only using 3% of their brain capacity.
For some people it's not even 0.3%, lol.