Living Voice Mystic Mat Experiences

Cmk,

What is the Kuzma platter made of? I use both a clamp and an outer ring. The outer ring being the most significant improvement (but a pain in the sjs to use). The outer ring opens up the sound stage to let you hear into the image. I find it funny that few people use it. The difference between a mat and the outer ring has been large for me. The outer ring obviously being "better" and the mats I have tried not being anything special. I might try the Mystic Mat though. I would love to see some detailed photos of it.

Hi Dgad
The Kuzma platter is made of alu with a felt surface.

The shop here that sells the mat and the outer ring said that the mat made a more musical difference than the outer ring.

My own experience of getting an insight into the soundstage was the Schroeder arm. Of course as you reach the heights of analogue playback, every little bit counts and they each contribute in unique ways. I would stop when the value of the change made is uncertain, but the mat was definitely a step in the right direction.

I will be comparing the Mystic Mat to no mat & to my Millenium mat shortly & will post my impressions.

I have the Mystic Mat now. In my system it is a much better mat than the Boston Audio Mat or the German Mat. It is similar in design on one side to the German mat but much thicker. It really doesn't change the sound a lot compared to placing the LP directly on the platter. What it does do is slightly improve the detail from the midrange on up. I find the bass slightly softened (very slight). The improvement in mids & treble make it worth it for me. It makes the treble cleaner & more defined. In fact it seems to me that it takes the hardness out of the treble letting you hear a more defined cymbal or snare. Midrange takes on a little more body. Again all these changes are subtle. You need to a/b several times to really hear the difference. We adjusted VTA to accomodate the mat with each a/b test. It truly is a pain but we did it for the comparison. I can see this mat being excellent with some tables which don't have a metal platter. My guess is it will probably give you the benefits of the metal platter due to the thickness of the mat and the mat sounding very similar to my metal platter.

We will be doing more comparisons in the upcoming days but I have spent 3 days a/b ing w. & without the mat. It truly is subtle. For me the other mats out there were not subtle but were not better either.

Dgad, glad that you like it too. I think your experience with the softening bass is just a matter of VTA adjustment. A bit higher should tighten things up. My Denon 103R is less sensitive to VTA generally.