New Composite Platter for SL1200s from Mike New

[jostber]

What about red with green dots?

[synsei]

I would be hoping that others might step forward to do the honours of trying one.
It does not seem to be reasonable that everyone should be relying on the work and opinions of two people. There must be a lot more enthusiasts out there who are in a position to contribute their advice.

Mike, I would gladly offer to evaluate your new platter, it looks really smart and I'm sure it does the bizz, but considering I am in no position to afford such an upgrade I feel it would be a waste of time and effort for both of us...

[Mike_New]

What about red with green dots?

can't do red or green. Any colour so long as it is black or white.

[HoraceW]

Never heard of ETP but looks like a form of POM or even Nylon66? Interesting choice and what made you go for it?

Yea,
This is a fine point Martin I personally believe as I have said, that the thicker mats with machined label recess, are not going to be ideal with the ETP paltter.
Refering to Marco's questions,
I would prefer not to identify the exact material that I am using at this point in time.
Suffice it to say that I did do some research in collaboration with materials consultants before selecting this particular type of ETP.

"Any idea yet what you're going to call your new platter?"

Yes I will refer to it as my ETP platter, as really this does define its genesis

[Mike_New]

Hi Hugh,
ETP is the general name given to the group of plastics used in engineering applications by my suppliers. There are many types and many grades within a type.
The particular material I am using is a Teflon compound.

[Mike_New]

Hi Folks,
This is a review/appraisal of the new ETP Platter by a user in Melbourne who, together with his brother are keen SL1200 followers.
And would seem to have been methodical in their testing. I have no connection with them other than they recently purchased my bearings.
Chris does not seem to keen to interactively participate on the Forum and has given me permission to publish this in his stead.
It should be understood that his sonic comparisons are between the SP platter (original Technics platter) and my new ETP platter. It makes no attempt (for obvious reasons), at comparison between the ETP and the Copper Bonded Alluminium version. I will leave this to Martin later.

Mike:
Sorry that it’s taken a little while to get this to you. I wanted to
make sure I got this spot on if it might in any way persuade someone
to part with their hard earned cheese. I have enjoyed the process very
much and having the new platter in place has opened my ears to a few
other small system tweaks that have been quite positive and have
remained in place.

I’ve now had the chance to lean into a couple of good sessions with
the “New” platter; let’s call it the ETP from here. During these
sessions I have had a standard Technics platter complete with magnet
on hand; let’s call it the SP. A good amount of A-Bing was done . I
had a number of different platter mats available but I perhaps feel I
did not have one that really got the best out of your platter… but
more on that later.

My 1200 is set up with a Jelco 250ST arm with an Ortofon 2M black on
board. My turntable sits on a slab of bluestone set on Isopods. The
standard feet are sitting on vibrapods, on cork based timber coasters.
All of this sits on a heavy hardwood cabinet on carpeted concrete
floors and is very well isolated from any nasty vibrations. Tapping
the deck or anything it sits on confirms this.

It has your bearing fitted which was a huge sonic improvement for my
vinyl playback. So many of the things that I thought were wrong with
my analogue front end went away when I fitted this beast of a bearing.

The deck is currently running on 12v SLA batteries. The power supply
and transformer have been removed and I have tapped the battery supply
in where the 21v from the standard regulator comes in, just before
the C3 cap, which has been changed to a 100uf Blackgate NX bypassed
with a .47uf NX HiQ. Well worth putting some quality bits in here.
Pitch and strobe are out of play. All this improved the noise floor
and gave a bit to the dynamics. Well worth the effort and time.

I have implemented the motor dynamics mod and like it with the heavier
ETP Platter. With soldering iron on standby I could change back and forth in
around 1 minute (I have some ideas on this! Mike). During that session my brother (in another room)
commented that the solo acoustic guitar at the beginning of a track
sounded like it was going slightly in and out of tune. He also
preferred the sound when I reverted back to having the mod in place.

Phono stage is homebrew tubes, amps were homebrew single ended tubes
and a modded Dayens Ampino and speakers were either high efficiency
paper driver 2 ways or single driver affairs (beta 8’s).It’s a well
tuned and revealing system but not ultra Fi by any means, which is
important in terms of this review.

So Mike, this is how it went….

The ETP Platter delivers a better organised, more focused and more realistic
soundstage in terms of size and 3-dimensionality. The “New” bearing
opened up a new and very welcome level of depth of stage and the ETP Platter adds to this… in all directions. I also felt a greater sense of the
floor of the stage and it seemed to extend to the floor in front of me
on some tracks which gives the impression of standing on or being
involved in the soundstage rather than it just hanging on the wall.
V.cool.

When you hold the ETP platter in your hands you get a sense of how it might sound by its weight and feel and the sound it makes when you tap it.

These things definitely translate across to the music. The ETP Platter provides a very solid and neutral platform for playback and gives nothing back in the way of unwanted energy transmissions or vibration to the stylus. The bell like ringing of the SP is well documented and when
it’s gone, you notice!
I have to say at this point that I did a lot of toying with platter mats to try and get the SP sounding close to the new ETP Platter. In the end it was close but no cigar. The best results I got with the ETP Platter came with the use of what looked to me like an original Technics mat…with the rings.
I know there are plenty of other potentially better options out there so I think there is potential for further improvement. In fact I’m sure of it. If the Platter you sent had had a recess for the record label, then perhaps vinyl straight on top could have been a serious contender. Anyway, I used this mat with the SP too, but underneath that was an old 50’s slab of a record (acetate?) weighing 350g on top of another solid, flat rubber mat of about 4mm thick sitting on and just inside the raised edge of the SP. It added a
good amount of weight to the SP and if struck gave a very dead
(although kind of rubbery) thud. Although a little unconventional, it
was a similar finished height and was the best sounding set up to
date. That is what was used for A/Bing.

Generally during the A/B tests I would listen to a track with the
first platter, then listen to the beginning of that track again (it
always sounds different the second time), then change platters and
listen, then back if needed, certainly the first times, till I was
certain of what I was hearing. For the first few runs I had the “New”
platter on first. After the change back to the stock, on several
occasions; I thought, hang on, does this sound more musical to me? Is
there more weight and warmth? Is it a bit smoother?……… Changing back
to your ETP Platter, I quickly realised that while these qualities were
partly present, they were artificial qualities and what I was hearing
was actually a bit blurred and smeared. Notes were overhung and I
had lost the leading edge of the notes and percussive hits along with
quite a bit of insight into the recording/event. The new platter doesn’t sound
less musical. Not at all. It just sounds more right. More realistic.

I don’t feel the need to go on about how certain parts of certain
songs sounded a certain way because what I was hearing is how it’s
supposed to sound; without any overhang on notes, any boom or bloom in
the bass or mids and with more clarity and less hash in the tops. And
I listen to all kinds of music… from Dr Dre to Dr Buzzard, from Beck
to Bowie to Basie… and that’s just the B’s. Well produced electronic
music sounded fantastic. As did acoustic, rock and jazz. It all had
weight and punch but also conveyed good emotion.

There is an obvious improvement also in the frequency extremes…
particularly in the top end in my system, which is partly responsible
for a lot of the things I have mentioned so far. My system won’t do
good pure 20hz but it does pretty well to around 30hz and I could hear
good improvements there too.

So for mine, in my system, your new ETP Platter does a sensational job at
getting right all of the things that the Technics platter gets wrong
in a nicely neutral and accurate way. It allows the passing on of
information crucial to the ‘being there’ experience and lets your system
shine. My amps still sound like my amps and my speakers still sound
like my speakers and the information coming from them sounds right.
I think that level of rightness will be hard to live without, having
now heard it.

I'm not a writer and have never written a review like this so it might
be all a little matter of fact but please feel free to use it as a
recommendation for you platter. It definitely works well in my modest
system and the better the system, the more I'm sure you will hear.

Do you have any questions about any of that Mike?

Cheers Chris.