Funk Firm Achromat Universal Record Mat

LP 12 Owners, You Must Try This! 5 Stars Reviewer: Tom Nielsen
Throw the Felt away! Don't waste time with the other mats. This one works! There is so much more music to hear and this mat really made a difference. Compared to the original Felt, the Extreme Phono - Donut None Felt Mat with Green Skin, also from Acoustic Sounds, the Acromat was remarkably better. More well controlled base but not tubby and more depth in the soundstage. You will hear things you couldn't hear before. You will be very pleased with this upgrade to your LP 12. Mine has never sounded better.

Imagine turntable perfection ? a symbiosis resulting from a perfect closed loop. Do something daft; use a wrong mat and break the loop and reproduction is ruined! Obvious?

In 1980, the undisputed choice to sit a record on was a soft felt mat. It must have been right. Or was it rubber, or silicone, or cork, or?? All claimed to be best at "damping," but how could they all be right? The answer? No one had a clue! A classic example of "Random Evolution" at work?

Then Arthur Khoubesserian arrived. Forwarding a theory matching disc/platter impedance, he released the Pink Triangle with its naked acrylic platter. This caused nothing short of uproar in the industry. His (now logical) suggestion to sit a record directly on "hard" acrylic was heresy. Heresy? The idea worked! Seems like someone actually knew what they were up to. Today, survival of the fittest means acrylic platters are "de rigueur" in all self-respecting quality turntables. What is it that they say about imitation and flattery?

Unfortunately for the competition today, for all its benefits, acrylic's limitations have caught up. Its mechanic-acoustic impedance doesn't precisely match that of the record. In thin sections its characteristic are poor, so as a mat it is not very good.

Now, The Funk Firm introduces the next stage in vinyl evolution: Achromat. Achromat's new material matches records 100 percent. It can't get better. It doesn't stop there. Achromat is further optimized by the introduction of bubbles. These gradually increase internal damping making Achromat more effective. The reduced weight helps for use as a universal mat.

The results you'll hear are more space and air, inky black backgrounds, layered timbral color, better midband resolution and sonorous deep bass.