TW Acustic Turntable Mat

fancy that a discussion regarding TW would bring out VPI basher as well! Geez...
I wonder what is the different between Zanden and Zanden/TW mat. Zanden mat that I tried was very soft and rubbery and it damped down the sound too much. That was when I still had the old Raven AC platter. I rather like Millenium mat but with felt side up (I know the carbon side is supposed to be up)for both Raven AC and BN platter. Mat/center weight are rather system dependent as they will alter sound. It may work in certain system better than other or not. With old Raven AC platter, I never found any clamp that work well with it until a local dealer let me burrow Creaktiv Systems Twister Stop Diablo which is an acrylic center weight. With BN platter, I am back to no center weight.

I prefer no mat but since systems vary it is not surprising that some find a mat that does something they like.

Its not like anyone talking about stacking on another platter on top of the OEM platter to cover up the flaws of the original one.

6 years of formal education, 35 years design engineering, consulting, and reasearch and several systems that would shrink your ego several sizes. Meanwhile you can worship your old rig which you had no part of designing or producing. The difference between a "doer" and a passive user of other folks work, defining yourself by that which you buy, then proclaim best.

so is this the case of a competing manufacturer/designer bashing another product?

No it is not. There are ways to do things right, sometimes weveral. But it IS a case of a materials scientist, modelling, and finite element analysis guy who has worked on these problems that involve many designs in several fields. Unfortunately in audio the work on tables and mats is mostly blind experimentation. Amazingly, many say that is the best way. Well, these are simple problems compared to an aircraft or Cruise Missile or space craft. Do you think ANY of those harder problems would be best solved by the trial and error, one man's opinion approach used in audio that so many on the forum espouse? Scores and scores and scores would have been killed, and yet we NEVER would have gotten there.