Platter Mat for Kuzma Turntables - Award Winning Turntable Mat

Kuzma Platter Mat  - Hi Fi World Accessory of the Year award

"I've no hesitation in recommending it"  HI FI WORLD MAGAZINE

The Origin Live upgrade mat is superb value for money with it's ability to improve sound quality on all turntables. Owners and reputable dealers like Russ Andrews write to say it's outperformed other well known high performance mats costing many times more.

This mat works on all decks because it does not seem to matter whether the platter material is metal, acrylic, glass, MDF, Poly-carbonate, PVC etc. This mat deserves it's popularity by the sheer number of different brands it's upgraded.

If you are in any doubt, the mat comes with a full money back guarantee. If you're not completely happy with the improvement in sound quality  just return the mat for a full refund. With no risk and much to be gained, why not give it a try.

A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT UPGRADE AT A LAUGHABLY LOW OFFER

The unique Origin Live "Upgrade" Mat acts as the critical interface between your vinyl records and turntable. Experimentation with different mats is simple and quick. The sound differences are usually obvious , even if your deck does not have a mat. Users find that the "upgrade" mat makes a far greater difference than most mats but more importantly it is a positive difference to every aspect of the music.

Bringing Music alive: - The new mat will greatly enhance your level of enjoyment due to the way it brings recordings alive. Music becomes far better integrated and more natural. In particular bass is solid and keeps time with the rest of the music - Too often one hears slow bass that lacks attack, along with an overhang which muddies the rest of the music. The Mat not only improves the quality of the bass but also improves bass extension by maybe an extra octave. This new dimension of speed and air is not limited to the bass regions but extends right through the frequency range. The differences this mat makes, may be summarized by saying  - "more natural, more dynamic and more transparent.

Tone From a Mat

The other week, I attended two live music performances given by entirely different groups. It was interesting that in the first, a violinist added superbly to a non classical band - the leader remarked afterwards "she has amazing tone". Later that week an Orchestra conductor was introducing a lead cornet player doing a solo and remarked "he has superb tone". After listening to the first few notes I could understand what he meant. It was the sort of rendition that was so noticeably pleasurable to the ear that you wanted to keep listening. Another player, playing the same instrument may be technically brilliant, hit all the right notes but just not be that pleasant to listen to.

This provoked a lot of thought on the similarities of "tone" in hi fi equipment. It has to do with that indefinable "something" that measurements don't really have much hope of capturing. Some may claim to have the answers, but the truth is usually far more complex. The point of this story is that every material in the Hi Fi replay chain has a tone and some are far superior to others. The material you use to support the actual playing surface in vinyl is probably one of the most important.

The Function of a Platter Mat

A great platter mat has 3 functions which are very tricky to reconcile:

1. It must prevent vibration from the turntable entering the record
   This includes bearing noise, transmitted motor noise through the drive system, cartridge feedback "chatter" transmitted via the tonearm into the deck, ground borne/ air borne audio feedback, underground pumps etc.
2. It must absorb and transmit resonance out of the record itself.
   It is hard to imagine the microscopic levels of movement that a Hi Fi cartridge functions at. The stylus vibrating in the record groove transmits energy into the vinyl record causing it to resonate in a way that will feedback into the stylus unless well damped. This feedback may be momentary to the tiniest fraction of a second but will nonetheless create blurring of some parts of the signal whilst obscuring others, so that they will not be heard. In other words there can be loss of information and addition of spurious noise to the intended signal. A good platter mat can do a great deal to eliminate these problems.
3. To transmit the drive to the record without elasticity or slip.
   Unlikely as it may seem, the surface that the record sits on responds very slightly to the amount of drag on the record. At best, this will be a very slight momentary elastic movement backwards, but enough to slightly deaden the impact of a bass note drum strike for example. At worst it will cause the record to slip backwards - this is only blatantly obvious when you can hear wow occurring, as in the case of a badly dished record, that only contacts the platter in the center.

Will it Work On Your Deck?

A mat that works universally well on all turntables is almost like the quest for the Holy Grail. For over 25 years we have experimented with countless platter mats varying from felt, fiberglass, air gap, various foams, cork, graphite, carbon fiber, acrylic, PVC, MDF, aluminium, rubber, silicon and steel laminates etc. This is to name but a few. Many of these mats yield significant improvements to some areas but have drawbacks in others. The discovery of a new flexible composite material which sounds a lot better than anything else demanded attention.

A mat that works well on acrylic platters is almost unheard of but this one really does the trick! It also interfaces well with metal, glass, composites and anything else for that matter.

The Mat is only 1 mm thick, and so is well within the ability of most tonearm height adjusters. The material mix from which it is manufactured is confidential.

No Risk Money Back Guarantee

Remember the mat comes with a money back guarantee if ordered directly from Origin Live. Should you be in any way dissatisfied, just return the mat for a full refund.