TW Acustic Turntable Mat

Hi Ebm....
No offense, the AC mat recommendation was merely the view of my local TW supplier. ;)

The "official" position seems to be Raven AC with mat, and R1 withOUT mat, although, in the beginning, I seem to remember the R1 was supplied with a Millenium Mat until it was rationalised away.

Perversely, I use my R1 with a mat (but not the Millenium because I bought my TT after TW stopped supplying mats) while plenty of folk seem to prefer their AC without one! ;)
Ah well...if it makes us happy.... :)

Functionally, the Zanden has more in common with the Millenium mat (dual layer, hard side-soft side) than it does with the Achromat (hard outer shell, cellular interior)
Kind regards,

Moonglum, thanks for the description. I saw the picture of TW/Zanden mat and it has a different colour but otherwise I can't tell if there is any other difference. However, the Zanden mat that I tried had only the soft rubbery material single layer so it sounds like it is different from TW/Zanden with dual layer soft/hard side.

Suteetat

The description from the TW site states this

Yamada-san of Zanden Audio, Japan, has developed a 5 mm thick compound mat for us, and it has totally won us over. The mat consists of two different layers of rubber. The harder of the two compounds sits directly on the turntable’s platter. The softer upper surface generates adhesion and thereby creates a perfect connection between record and turntable. The incomparable dynamics that distinguish our turntable from the rest remain fully unnrestricted, but the musical reproduction appears clamer and more composed because there is now no perceptible pickup noise at all. In addition, the mat lends the music an aura of silkiness and exclusive musicality.

So from the above descrition it is a one sided mat, but dual density with the soft layer intended to face up.
Right now I am using my TW with out a mat. I only have experience with the Millenium mat. But I will eventually get the new TW/Zanden mat one of these days.

Hmmm

I own the Raven AC-3 with BN platter. I currently use without any mat as it sounds better.

I have tried Boston audio mat - deadens the sound, so I guess OK if your system is bright.
Millennium mat that came with table - OK but seems slightly diffuse/blur detail in certain frequencies.
Living Voice mat - best of the 3 and pretty close to no mat.

Furutech record weight used depending on recording being played.

Interesting that rubber compound is used for the new Zanden/TW mat. Back to the 70's and DD tables and rubber mats.
I have yet to find a mat that betters the rubber mat that cane with my Pioneer Exclusive P3 as it adds life and drive into the music.
Perhaps I should try my two spare Technics rubber mats - thin and thick on the TW platter?

I have tried an original rubber mat from old Pioneer turntable, but results were unimpressive.

Quite interesting results and easy to check I got when I placed a second winyl record under the played one.
This brings me to idea of trying Clearaudio Harmonicer mat, which is not very expensive and made of winyl.