A platter mat upgrade is highly effective because it affects the
critical interface between your vinyl records and the turntable you play
them on. Experimentation with different turntable mats is simple and
quick. You find the sonic differences are usually noticeable. Even if
your turntable is not supplied with a platter mat, this mat will improve
sound quality. Origin Live’s Platter Mat Upgrade makes a far greater
difference than most others, bringing a positive difference to every
aspect of the music.
The Origin Live Platter Mat Upgrade greatly enhances musical
enjoyment, by bringing recordings alive. Music becomes better integrated
and far more natural. Bass solidifies and timing improves–gone is a
muddy bass that blurs performance. An extra octave of bass is often
tapped by the Upgrade Platter Mat. The mid band acquires increased
clarity.
“The platter mat has improved all areas of the sound, most noticeable
are the increase in soundstage, front to back mainly, the start and
decay of instruments being played are also improved, detail is better,
backing vocals that were audible before are now easier to follow, as are
the lyrics of the main vocals.
But the largest improvement is the Bass performance, all notes are
much clearer and the extension better, it has improved the timing of the
music areas also which makes the musical message much more obvious.”
Ron Wood
A Great Turntable Mat Has Three Functions
- First, it must decouple the record from vibration entering it via
the turntable, this includes bearing noise, transmitted motor noise
through the drive system, cartridge feedback, chatter transmitted via
the tonearm into the turntable, ground and air-borne audio feedback,
underground pumps, etc.
- Second, it must absorb and transmit resonance out of the record
itself. A stylus vibrating in a record groove sets the vinyl resonating
in a way that will feed back into the stylus if not highly controlled.
This may be momentary to the tiniest fraction of a second, but will
nonetheless create blurring of the signal and overlay other parts 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.
- Third, it must transmit the drive to the record without elasticity
or slip. The surface that the record sits on responds 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. At worst it will cause the record to slip
backwards, which is only obvious when you can hear wow occurring–as in
the case of a badly dished record that only contacts the platter in the
center.
Why a New Platter Mat?
Initially we introduced a semi-rigid mat that we called the
Performance Mat. Feedback was almost universally positive, with users
reporting superior performance over the recognised market leaders they
already owned.
Further experimentation led to a new flexible composite material
which sounded even better. Not just a bit better, a lot better. The
Upgrade Mat does most things that the Performance Mat does, only it does
them better.
Will it work on my deck?
Finding a mat that works universally well on all turntables is almost
like the quest for the Holy Grail. In over 22 years we have
experimented with countless platter mats varying from felt, fibreglass,
air gap, various foams, cork, graphite, carbon fibre, 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.
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 and composite platters. The Origin Live Upgrade Mat is only 1mm
thick, and so is well within the ability of most tonearm height
adjusters. The material mix from which it is manufactured must remain
confidential.