acrylic platter for Planar 3

[dafdesign]

Are the benefits in upgrading to an acrylic platter over the existing glass worth the cost they range from $120 to $160 I don't like using a mat and I've been told that one is not needed with the acrylic platters??

[planet10]

I don't know about acrylic. there are quite a few Regas around here with Corian platters (including my R2) but we still use mats.

dave

[vynuhl.addict]

Hi dafdesign,


The whole idea behind using an acrylic platter and directly coupling the LP to the platter is the idea of acoustic coupling the LP to the platter to form one thick lp with better stability. Acrylics mechanical properties closely resemble that of Vinyl/PVC with of course the next best obvious step being PVC, but PVC is not as ridgid as Acrylic so in order to get the same benefits you need a heavier platter. If I remember correctly the aftermarket Rega platters are about 1" at their thickest minus the area machined for the subplatter?. I had built a PVC platter for my previous Rega a few years back and it was definately a substantial upgrade all around, but unfortunately nowadays vinyl consumes little of my time and have focused more on digital playback but every once in a while break out those LP's and am amazed at just how organic and realistic they can sound.


Colin

[AMV8]

Hi

I have tried an acrylic platter on my rega and on my rock turntables.

To test the advantages/disadvantages I made an acylic platter by glueing together 20 old lp's. I steamed off the labels and then simply glued together.

I found that the acrylic platter was an advantage over the old glass platter. However it was not as good as the rock platter which is an acrylic top surface over an alloy former filled with plaster of paris.

I did not find that adding a mat helped - in fact I prefered the sound without a mat added. I also prefered the sound using a record clamp.

I did not take any measurements; I just listened. However the differences were not small and could easily be heard.

Don

[Alex M]

What about the Funk Firm Achroplat? Or, for rather less money, you could simply replace the existing Rega mat with the Achromat, from the same company.

Alex

[tubenut]

What about the Funk Firm Achroplat? Or, for rather less money, you could simply replace the existing Rega mat with the Achromat, from the same company.

They ROCK!

Go for Achroplat if you can afford it, then sell the glass to someone who has one of the later P2 models (or NAD, Moth, Goldring) with MDF platter to fund part of the purchase...