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Given prior experiments, I tend to listen with a nude platter or on hard mats, for example acrylic or even shale though the latter doesn’t really suit the VPI Scout II. Sonically and on ‘hygiene’ I’m content but handling of course is milking mice especially with the VPI and its disc screw. Flipping sides means powering the deck down, unscrewing the weight, turning the disc, rescrewing the weight, firing up the motor again to hit full speed… aye, just writing it is tiresome.
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In what direction did the sound move with the bFly weight and mats? I started with the 1mm PA1/1 and exchanged the VPI screw-down with bFly’s weight. The spontaneous first impression was that things sounded a bit quieter. Strange but obviously easily compensated for with a counter turn on the volume. The second impression was tonal. The treble seemed minimally milder, a tad less explicit. This minor effect netted a tick more warmth and fullness. Ben Harper’s voice on Welcome to the Cruel World grew less throaty and a bit more sonorous than usual. Quite pleasant.
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The third observation was that impulse precision was barely affected. If Harper’s guitar picks showed a nuance less sharpness and immediacy, it was a mere nuance. Some could call it more natural since it drew the instrumental body a bit fuller and more intense. In the end it’ll be personal taste which calls a preference between the bFly set and VPI’s own hold-down and nude platter. I thought that Schäffer’s set sounded more pleasing. My key excitement stemmed from having chanced upon a soft vinyl-friendly solution which sonically didn’t make fundamental chances to my VPI Scout II but clearly simplified and speeded up record changes.
A swap to the 3mm and Duo samples didn’t net any real gains versus the 1mm. Perhaps soundstaging became a bit less open and the treble milder but other record players could well respond differently. By now I threw on the Vario set merely as a reviewer's duty since it was as thick as the Duo but even softer to predict sounding more polite. Alas, it didn’t. Things weren’t that simple.
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I played with the sequence of the two mats and then remembered Schäffer’s comment that one might also try the foamed rubber mat solo. And wouldn’t you know it, precisely that can really do the job if your analog constellation leans that way. Relative to the upper registers, I revisited the domain of the first PA1/1. The treble was a tad milder than with the nude platter. In the lower midrange and bass meanwhile, things got more energetic and articulate. The ‘and’ was decisive since one quality often eliminates the other.
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With the record directly on the platter and VPI’s screw top in action, the upper octaves were more on the offensive, more direct and a bit more resolved. With bFly’s combo set of Vario mat and weight, the bass and lower vocal range gained in transparency and the concomitant presence gain created more musical drive to see me more involved.
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| Conclusion: The bFly Audio testers were well finished, eminently practical and pleasantly affordable. Obviously sonic gains for this type of accessory will always vary depending on the hardware context in which they’re used. Relative to my own experiments and results, I’d simply credit Schäffer’s analog helpers with a brilliant cost/performance ratio. I thus acquired his PG1 platter weight and Vario plus PA1/1 mat. I only passed on the Base Two Pro because I already own an equivalent though sadly costlier and uglier solution. |
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redaktion @ fairaudio.de
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