By Stuart Wennen (Independent reviewer for over 4 Sound and Hi-Fi magazines, also a Professional Design Engineer and University Lecturer in Electronics)

Origin Live Turntable Platter Mat

Turntable enthusiasts will have noticed that platter mats affect the sound produced considerably. This is because the mat has 4 jobs to achieve:

To isolate the pick up arm and cartridge from extraneous noise i.e. motor noise, turntable main barring noise and of course built in transformer noise (more of this later)
The mat also damps the platter, in other words, it stopped the platter material ringing which has a large effect on the transcription process.
Platter mats also damped the resonance caused by the very nature of the physical contact between the generator and vinyl surface, this effect has been called, “needle torque”, if this is not addressed this can give rise to coloured reproduction.
The platter mat should not slip as this gives rise to dynamic wow and destroys the timing of the original vinyl reproduction.

The Origin Live mat is a composite construction, Origin Live will not release this information, and is 1mm thick. This is within the range of most quality pick up arm manufacturers with vertical tracking management adjustment. The mat feels reassuringly substantial when taken from the sleeve. It was placed on the platter of a Technics SL1210, the VTA was adjusted to suit and the first piece of vinyl was played. I noticed the difference between my old mat and the Origin Live mat straight away. The first point of interest was that the music seemed to be reproduced with extra clarity along with a lack of surface noise.

Furthermore the stereo image seems to have grown! It extended in height, width and depth, there seemed to be a more accurate transcription of the music, much more precision in the delivery of information. This turntable mat certainly delivers the goods! It is also universal as it was tried on a large variety of turntables, e.g. Garrard 4O1, Technics SL1200-1210, Thorens TD125-TD150 and finally Townshend Rock.

Now the difficult question, would I use one of these mats? Yes I certainly would.

Origin Live Dampening Feet & Felt Pads

I was supplied with a bag of four replacement feet for the Technics 1200-1210 along with four felt washers. I removed the standard Technics feet and replaced them with the upgrade from Origin Live.

When the turntable was switched on the pick up arm was queued and dropped into the groove and....I was absolutely amazed. The difference was staggering, the stereo image was cleaned up by a large amount. As well as the above improvement they reduced footfall by a huge amount as well as virtually removing airborne acoustic feedback to almost inaudible levels. These feet (and felt washers) are a must buy for any Technics SL1200-1210 turntable. They do what it says on the tin.

Advanced Power Supply

This includes: a wall-wart, 12 VA transformer.

As any Hi Fi enthusiast will be aware, power supply performance is vital to any turntable. The Origin Live upgrade is simple to install using the supplied instruction sheet and also the web data as well. The Advanced was connected to a rather old 1210, then it was powered up. After about 15minutes, to allow the electronics to stabilise, the other functions were tried on the turntable. All of the functions worked exactly as they did before the modification. The modification improved transcription by a large amount i.e. bass was cleaner with an amazing reproduction of drum kits and bass instruments. The vocals were considerably improved as well as dramatic flutter improvement, giving better insight into the music. Wow!

The “haze” associated with direct drive motor systems was also removed. The modified turntable was judged to be better in all areas. It was almost as good as turntables costing thousands of pounds.

We then returned the SL1210 back to original (a couple of minutes work with the soldering iron) and the difference was huge.

Gone was the huge stereo image, there seemed to be less space around the instruments, the noise seemed to be louder and the pitch control seemed to be less accurate. A definite improvement was noticed with the advanced PSU in use.

Ultra Power Supply

The Ultra is the top of the range of the SL1200 power supplies. The Ultra differs from the advanced with higher grade components and much more sophisticated printed circuit board. Although the motor control case looks identical except for the colour of the LED. The effect of the Ultra over the advanced was not subtle. The stereo image was about the same size although the instruments and vocals seemed much more vividly reproduced. The depth of the image was judged greater with the ultra power supply than the advanced. The ultra grave better transient image retrieval of information, it also aided the timing of the music. This PSU is highly recommended for the Technics SL1200-1210. It takes the SL1200 from being a fairly good turntable into the “super deck” league. Although the cost of a fully modified SL1210 can be had for beer budget money.

Upgrade Transformer

This rather innocuous looking case was substituted for the VA 12 wall-wart power supply. Again the difference was large, it offered, lower noise flaw, huge stereo image, the turntable controls responded quicker than the standard power supply.

This is no doubt due to the better rectification and regulation offered by the custom built toroidal transformer inside the case! Speed stability was also improved measurably by the substitution. To sum up a very worthy addition to the SL1200-12010 turntable. It affords a massive improvement to all the above Origin Live range.

Conclusion

All of the SL1200-1210 modifications, the power supply upgrade is a must have addition to the SL1200-1210 turntable. As the Technics transformer is, in effect, removed from the turntable. Dramatic improvements are the order of the day!

As we go up the range of power supplies, the improvements were not subtle!

At the end of this I started my SL1200 with no power supply modifications and the difference was tremendous. When I replaced the standard feet with the Origin Live upgrades, again the difference was immediately apparent. Substituting the platter mat for the Origin Live upgrade, the improvement again literally staggering.

The upgrade path has to be in this order.

Install Advanced power supply.
Install Ultra power supply.
Upgrade transformer
Feet substitution
Origin Live substitution.

Origin Live has identified the weak points of the SL1210 design. They have provided and affordable upgrade path for this turntable. Along with a 28 day money back if not satisfied guarantee, what have you got to lose?

All of these modifications are highly recommended to professional DJs and Hi Fi enthusiasts.