Herbies TT Matt

[rollo]

  Men if you have a TT this is another no brainer IMO. better everything, more there there. Tonight i'll try the mini dampers on the arm. $60. I'm very impressed with better focus tighter bass. Extended highs without edge sweet. I'm in love again. Ya never know until you try, really glad I made the plunge.


charles

[Rob S.]

Rollo,
     Does your platter have an existing "stock" mat of some kind?   or are you adding the Herbies TT mat to bare hard surface platter, metal, acrylic, etc....?

Which thickness mat did you buy?

Rob S.

[Carlman]

I had the original Herbies mat and somehow lost it.. I might have given it away when I got out of vinyl the first time too.. In any case, I too thought it was an easily discernable improvement on my Pro-Ject RM4.  I think (not sure) my RM4 came with a felt mat and then a hard rubber one.. the Herbies replaced the felt mat and sounded way-better with either the record on the rubber or the felt.  I'd like to have one for my current rig.. an RM6.  It's on 'the list'.  My birthday's coming up! haha.

Here's a link: http://herbiesaudiolab.home.att.net/ttmat.htm

[richidoo]

Do you think it would make any difference on my Technics with hollow cast platter? 

[Carlman]

I think it would but.. it's just a guess.

Oh.. and btw about the gerth of your mat..

Which thickness mat did you buy?
Rob S.

A note on thickness:

The open-cell silicone foam used with Way Excellent II Turntable Mats does not need to be as thick as hard rubber mats to effectively decouple from the platter and do a better job at it. Any thickness above 3.7mm, which is more than sufficient to damp any resonance and ringing from a semi-hollow cast platter, simply adds thickness and height, with no real increase in performance. Usually, the only reason you would want a mat thicker than 3.7mm is if you cannot adjust VTA/tonearm height to accommodate. (scroll up to return)

[tmazz]

  Men if you have a TT this is another no brainer IMO.

Be careful with a blanket statement like that. If you have a TT that was originally designed to be used with a mat of any type I might agree with you. However there a a number of high end TTs that were designed to be used sans mat. Their platters were carefully designed to be a mechanical match to vinyl and work to mechanically drain stray vibrations away from the record (Kind of the mechanical equivalent to impedance matching in the electrical domain.) I most of these cases the introduction of any type of mat at all will undo this mechanical coupling and have a negative effect on the sound.

Also any change in mat will require you to revisit the VTA adjustment of your tonearm. When doing the final dial-in on the VTA of my SME 4 last time I changed the cartridge a change of 1/8 of a turn on the VTA adjustment screw made a huge difference in sound. Now that screw has 32 threads per inch, so do the math and figure out how much you are moving the arm with 1/8 of a turn. there can easily be a bigger difference than that in thickness between two mats, so once you change mats you cannot automatically assume that the VTA will be unaffected.

And while I cannot say this for sure, it would not be outside of the realm of the possible for the VTA change caused by the new mat is more responsible for the sound change that the composition of the mat itself. I have no doubt that you heard an improvement, I just wonder what the cause and effect was since there is more than one variable in play here.

[BobM]

I agree Tom. I've tried a few mats with my VPI and they only resulted in a dulled sound. I know charlie doesn't have a VTA adjustment on his Linn, so the improvement from the mat could also be the result of a better VTA for his cartridge, as well as resonance control.

[Carlman]

If you look at the side of the needle, you can see what the height needs to be to bring the needle perfectly perpendicular to the record.. using stacks of washers you can figure out what the perfect height would be (including the record)  So, subtract the thickness of your most common record and bam, you've got the right thickness mat to use. 

If a 1/8th turn is making that much difference, wouldn't you need to adjust for each different thickness of vinyl used?  80's vinyl was often very thin.  180g records are pretty thick.. more than the 1/8th turn would do.  Maybe you could put little marks for each record type, color coded, with little color codes on each record.   haha.  Nervosa!

[rollo]

Rollo,
     Does your platter have an existing "stock" mat of some kind?   or are you adding the Herbie's TT mat to bare hard surface platter, metal, acrylic, etc....?

Which thickness mat did you buy?

Rob S.

 The linn has a felt Matt. Herbies Matt sits directly on the platter. I left the thickness up tp Herbie. His site mentions what thickness for many TTs. The Herbie Matt is the same thickness as the Linn's felt Matt. So no VTA adj. req. for the Arkiv cart.
  Obviously some may require VTA adj, which is no big deal. I feel confident with my statement the material used is a step forward over the felt. Linn is known for dictating what not to do as far as resonance control or modds is concerned. They are wrong, this Matt is a large leap forward in performance which IMO will improve any TT that uses a Matt. Hey I'm not alone read the owners comments. Give it a try for $60 and a money back gusrrentee, whats to loose, shipping ? Buy one.
  Tom if you like I'll bring it to our next meeting.


charles

[BobM]

he he he, you said "thickness"

But seriously, the VTA is not about a platter surface and tonearm setting. It's about a platter surface and what the cartridge needs. Some like level, some slightly higher or lower than level. My guess is that herbis takes the middle ground and says this thickness will get you level, or maybe a little higher in the back, which is where most VTA adjustments fall.

However I have found that something as insiginficant as the thickness of an index card sized adjustment to my VTA makes a very noticeable difference on my TransfigurationTemper. It made less of a difference on my old Dynavector, and absolutely no difference on my old Grado. I think people who don't have the ability to adjust VTA should probably be using cartridges that are less finicky in their setup, or try different shims and mat sizes to make the adjustment as close as you can get it.

Carl, yes, different records have differnt thicknesses and you can go crazy getting the VTA right for each. If you have an on the fly adjustment it may not be such an issue. But if you have a set screw to deal with it's always a tradeoff to find the middle ground for most of the records you listen to.

Or you can stay away from the sports car cartridges and go with a family sedan.

[rollo]

I agree Tom. I've tried a few mats with my VPI and they only resulted in a dulled sound. I know charlie doesn't have a VTA adjustment on his Linn, so the improvement from the mat could also be the result of a better VTA for his cartridge, as well as resonance control.

    No VTA adj. required for the Arkiv cart. Herbies matt is the same thickness as Linn's felt matt That was a concern of mine since changing the VTA on the Linn is a bitch, cause you need to undo the arm . "F" that. For me it was a a simple switch. If you have a TT with a VTA adj, then the change in height if required can easily be adjusted. I have tried other matts like Ring matt, rubber, cork and a home made ones.  Herbies matt made an instant an obvious difference for the good. Worth a try.


charles

[tmazz]

If a 1/8th turn is making that much difference, wouldn't you need to adjust for each different thickness of vinyl used? 

Carl you are absolutely right, hence the on the fly VTA adjustment lever on the old ET2 arm. Unfortunately for most of us frequent VTA adjustments are not practical. On the SME IV although there is a VTA adjustment screw that screw is no left in during play. To make a small adjustment you put in the screw until it contacts the base, loosen the post, turn the screw to raise or lower the arm, tighten the post again and then take out the screw before you listen (and do it over and over again until it's dialed in.) Not something you can do for each record so in practicality what you end up doing is picking a record size that is either in the middle or the size of the records you play most often, set up it for that and hope for the best.

There is nothing like getting your tone arm geometry dead nuts on,   but there are too many variables to be able to expect it to be that way for every record. Remember a large change in VTA can even throw off your overhang which would send you back to repositioning the cartridge in the headshell. Arghhh....

Bob's right. Set it  somewhere in the middle and hope for the best.

Perfection is overrated. Take it from someone who knows firsthand.   

[tmazz]

Or you can stay away from the sports car cartridges and go with a family sedan.

..... and play music instead of palying with equipment?

Sorry, Earl's not around any more, so somebody had to say it!

[tmazz]

...... this Matt is a large leap forward in performance which IMO will improve any TT that uses a Matt.

I think you hit the key phrase right there.. on any turntable that uses a mat. If the platter designer built some kind of damping into the platter itself, adding any kind of mat could be counterproductive.

Now, that said if you think of it bring it along to the meeting, I'm willing to give it a try. It wouldn't be the first time something that was 180 degrees out of phase with conventional thinking made a positive impact.. If everything worked the way it was supposed to in theory we would get bored awful fast.