Project Acryl-it Platter

Hi, P. The Herbie's mat is an excellent upgrade for the Pro-Ject metal platter. As Grinnell points out, the mat improves bass response, and I found that background noise was was quieted as well. Made for a more resolving mid-range and treble and seemed to increase dynamics as well. As David says, it's a relatively inexpensive upgrade that makes a noticeable improvement with that metal platter. I even use a Herbie's mat with the acrylic platter on my mmf-7 turntable.

The one good reason to replace the metal platter is if you want to use low output moving coil cartridges as they get pulled (magnetically) right down onto the metal platter. The acrylic platter isn't ferrous so doesn't affect LOMC cartridges, which contain strong magnets.

Tom

Does the Herbie's Mat cut down on static? The OEM felt mat is stuck to the bottom of the LP after playing and I have to peel it off and reattach to platter.

Well I live in Colorado and the humidity is so low i did have some sticking problems but used double stick tape under the herbies mat to hold it down.

I thought the Acryl-it platter was a fantastic upgrade to my Debut III. Better sound, better looking. One thing to think about if you plan to upgrade your cartridge at all - the acrylic platter allows you to use a moving coil cart, while you cannot do so with the metal platter. At least, I have personal knowledge that you can't use a Denon DL-160. Not sure if Herbie's mat would be enough of a shield between the metal platter and the cart to allow for a moving coil, doubt it.

They are kind of expensive but getting Zerostat would be good especially if you use vacuum machine to clean.I used 16.5 and that built up static and Zerostat did good job (I do double clean cycle with one pre-clean tube and second round then use LAST LP preservative every 50 plays.But tow clean on new Lp definitely build up static on that first clean and even once through machine or simple brush did it as well).No matter what you use to clean LP's even brush static will build up even removal from paper sleeves (and a bit with rice paper VRP's).Yeah Felt is definitely something to dump sound and hassle wise.Acrylic,cork,vinyl all are better.
Chazz