Probably my favorite item in my hifi rooms, overall, is the Well Tempered Lab table. Oh don't get me wrong, I swoon at most everything I've chosen that's here, the Brinkmann table, the Dynavector big boy cartridge (and all the others), the new 300B (for me) amp from Line Magnetic, the racks, the cables, those Quatro speakers from Vandersteen (after hearing large speakers at the last Axpona show they only grow in my esteem at how wonderful a bargain they are), sheer gloriousness from the DeVore Orangutan speakers. Yet the WTL Amadeus, for all its quirkiness, delivers analog sound unlike most anything around. I've had more tables as a hobbyist than Roger Ebert had popcorn. Turntables still repeatedly satisfy me unlike any amp or speaker can. It's the foundation on which I play my old friends, records I've had since my childhood, my deceased sister's records we listened to in high school that bring smiles and tears, my grandfather's records he played on his huge console at dinner time at family gatherings. I have many great records given to me by customers, from their relative's collections or library sales. Records that have meaning to me or someone else who originally bought them. Nothing like a wav file that someone's copied and given me, this little bit of data that neither sounds that much like real music or has any tangible meaning in the long term.
No, I want tables, and records, and anything that will make the playing of such a wonderful medium more enjoyable.
Which brings me long-windedly to my initial reason for signing on tonight, to mention that I have in stock the near perfect mat for the WTL, and apparently some other brands out there, the Auditorium Turntable Mat.
The mat comes in two varieties, a thin mat that might remind one of a vinyl car top, which sells for $100, and a thicker wool mat, reminiscent of the felt mats of Linn, only stiffer. None of that whooshing around the way they and the Rega wool mats used to do. The wool mat sells for $250. Both offer tremendously better sound than the stock foam mat that comes with the WTL tables. It's a clear winner, no doubting Thomas's need worry. It's actually a toss up for me which I prefer. It seems to be a fair and honest trade off between the two. Both yield blacker blacks between the notes, better bass, quieter passages, and thank heavens no static cling like that blasted foam mat can yield. Nothing's worse than having your mat come off with the record, and double sided tape decidedly dries up over time. Anyway, I always have them in stock, ready to go. I do hear they do something of an improvement with Regas, if you haven't yet switched to an Amadeus. Nothing but heaven can help a Clearaudio or VPI.
So here they are:
No, I want tables, and records, and anything that will make the playing of such a wonderful medium more enjoyable.
Which brings me long-windedly to my initial reason for signing on tonight, to mention that I have in stock the near perfect mat for the WTL, and apparently some other brands out there, the Auditorium Turntable Mat.
The mat comes in two varieties, a thin mat that might remind one of a vinyl car top, which sells for $100, and a thicker wool mat, reminiscent of the felt mats of Linn, only stiffer. None of that whooshing around the way they and the Rega wool mats used to do. The wool mat sells for $250. Both offer tremendously better sound than the stock foam mat that comes with the WTL tables. It's a clear winner, no doubting Thomas's need worry. It's actually a toss up for me which I prefer. It seems to be a fair and honest trade off between the two. Both yield blacker blacks between the notes, better bass, quieter passages, and thank heavens no static cling like that blasted foam mat can yield. Nothing's worse than having your mat come off with the record, and double sided tape decidedly dries up over time. Anyway, I always have them in stock, ready to go. I do hear they do something of an improvement with Regas, if you haven't yet switched to an Amadeus. Nothing but heaven can help a Clearaudio or VPI.
So here they are:
RSS Feed