I must admit that, when about one year ago the rumor spread of this very peculiar turntable mat, I thought it was one of the many mountebank exercises of a market that, relying on an apparently unlimited trust by its public, has been producing quite a lot of swindles along the last twenty years. Moreover, the description of the item - confirmed by the name chosen by the manufacturer, "The Donut "- recalled to my crowded and maybe now fragile mind of hyper-imaginative audiophile, not really charming and pleasing sights. For instance, it recalled inflatable ring cushions used to allow persons suffering by proctologic diseases to sit down painlessly. Or, the half-deflated tire inner tubes which fat swimmers clung to in the (then, now a kind of miracle has been made) ferrous and hygienically scarcely attractive waters of the sea shore near Rome. Or, more, those arm supports that an orthopedist with a criminal attitude imposed to me in my tender childhood to recover, in his opinion, a broken collar-bone and which on the contrary would bring me these endless spine problems I daily deal with. In a word, no attractive image was recalled. As it's well known, if hi-fi stuff, especially high-end stuff, doesn't charm, it doesn't exist. But word spread a lot in Italy too. Photos kept on not convincing me, who knows why, maybe because one tends to keep the first images he recalled and to overlap them to the current ones. So I had shifted from a stage "it's a swindle, and it's ugly too" to a next stage "It may work, but it has to stay clear of my turntables".

But the story was going on, somebody that had it delivered from the U.S. affirmed that it could make even a Technics 1210 sound good (I'm joking, provoking the members of the very active "Esoteric DJ Fan Club"). At last some passionate-tester "pen pals" and story-teller of sounding gadgets, decided to pack a small company to market this and other accessories and complements, and I found one in my hands. That's ok, you could have said from the beginning (and they're likely to have said it) that it's named "Donut" just because it bears a hole in its center, meaning it's scientifically deprived of the part correspondent to the label of an LP. Oh yes, because a "Donut" - you don't need to have been to the U.S., you just have to have been to a McDonald's - is exactly that blown up, ring-shaped cake we have ignored to be a Donut for most of our lives. We have always called it, what a chance, cake, ordering it at our Café at breakfast together with a cappuccino (that blend of leaven, lactose and caffeine that is deadly for your health but whose pleasure you can't do without). Apart from jokes and prologues, the item is actually a stylish and well-crafted piece. I will go further and take a position: it turns out to be elegant on most turntables, thanks to its cross-fibers pattern. Moreover, after having laid it with a slight initial sense of horror upon my Thorens TD 124 with Rogers jewel-case base and Pritchard wood tone arm, all rigorously original and belonging to the same historical period, I left it even there for quite a number of days. i.

For the not initiate: the importance of a mat

The mat will be considered by most of you a definitely secondary element in a turntable. An element that sits there just because that's the way it goes; but it plays on the contrary an important role both under a sonic point of view and in the struggle to cut noise down. Let's start from a fundamental statement: a turntable system (with its tone arm and its cartridge) is actually a complex system to suspend a microphone. This microphone has to catch very weak signals laid on a spinning object and send them to an amplifier; this latter on his turn will take care of magnifying them and of sending them to the speakers that will turn them into air movement, that means, in sound. Signals are weak and the microphone is mighty, so it tends to pick up and to send to the amplifier both the signals which require its action, and those (noises, vibrations, static sparks, electronic pulses) that nobody has ever asked it to pick up. But, you know microphones are in the best case precise and thorough, but in no way are they intelligent and capable of making distinctions. The amount of noise generated or picked up and fed back by a turntable system is - with all evidence - inversely proportional to the quality of its construction and of the efforts to insulate it from the surrounding ambient and from the same components it's made with. In this complicated system of war to the noise, the mat, I was saying, carries out a fundamental task. In fact, it has to insulate the vinyl disc from the turntable platter; platter that spins upon a shaft coupled to the engine then to different transmission mechanisms depending on the drive layout chosen. You can easily figure out how much noise can be generated in this part of the turntable, but that's not all, because the LP itself is made of a resonant matter (little, but it is). Therefore, one of the style exercises more practiced in this field is that of trying to dampen as much as possible those vibrations generated by the disc itself or brought to it, though in a minimal part, by the tracking system itself with its motion and weight. The use of high-quality thick vinyl, where applied, is always praiseworthy anyway. The non-perfect planarity of the disc, therefore the existence of hollow, resonant spaces between it and the platter, might be - and often is - another important source of noise. Most of the turntables in the market are equipped with rubber mats, of different thickness and density, more or less effective. Some English turntables - traditionally Linn leads the rank - mount felt-made mats, regarding these as far better ones in terms of insulation and noise abatement. Some other turntables - the Pink Triangle first - bear no mat, trying to cut the story short through anti-resonant acrylic platters, instead of metal-made ones. The market offers also mats manufactured according to different solutions, all intended to replace the factory ones.

The Donut, this by now famous stranger

After this short recall for the not initiate that will have been directly skipped by the initiate, let's talk about the Donut. I was saying that the mat is made of a pattern of crossed rubber, conductive fibers: It looks rather thin and very flexible. Its soft and elastic construction grants an always practically perfect adhesion to the disc surface (still, neither the Donut can cure deformed records). The fact that the fibers it's made of are slightly conductive is fundamental in operating turntables with an acrylic platter. In fact the disc's path to ground is normally granted by the contact between the disc itself and the metallic platter connected to the spindle, allowing static charges to be grounded through the turntable ground connection, indirectly connected to the same platter and spindle. Being acrylic platters not conductive, according to the opinion of the Donut designers this important chain is broken. Anyway, let's not get trapped in the endless technical explanations, more or less understandable, more or less demonstrable, offered by the user's manual. A manual, I have to say, that is well done, and that is also honest in technical explanations, avoiding the technobabble so many U.S. "esoteric" manufacturers have got us accustomed to. Let's focus on the target instead: does the Donut work? How does it work? Is it worth its price? Well, I have to admit that my skeptical attitude had no foundation. Maybe it came from having seen some too enthusiastic description, one of these that bring more damages than advantages to a product, like "it changed my life" or: "now my Pioneer sounds better than my neighbor's Goldmund, and in bed my wife is better than Swedish hard-core movies". I just say that the Donut works, generally speaking, extremely well, getting its job of noise insulation and vibration cutting completely done. A job other mats get done too, but not so well. bene.

Life through Donut

It's clear that where you have abatement, down to extremely weak but anyway insidious thresholds, in the noise, as a counterweight you will get more dynamics. The equation is easy: the power from your amplifier stays the same, if it is used, in a larger or narrower measure, to amplify noise instead of music signals, the dynamic spread tends to close. You will also get better micro-dynamics (the higher the noise threshold, the harder it will be to reproduce and/or hear the weaker music signals), better airiness and spatial likeliness (since noise does not follow exact rules, but is shaped in space with hard to forecast patterns). To cut a long story short, it does the job that a good quality mat is supposed to. But it does it better than any other mat I've ever come across. I made a comparison with the Yves Cochet mat, which I've always considered the best among those I own, and the Donut came out of the match definitely proudly. It's very easy to use since it has a good adhesion to the underlying surface, even when it's smooth and polished like it happens with acrylic platters. Even if it's just laid upon the platter it doesn't slip when changing the disc or the side of it (unless one does not perform especially sudden and quick movements, I mean, I wouldn't suggest the Donut to DJs), It is thin enough not to create major VTA (stylus' vertical tracking angle) problems with those arms whose height can't be adjusted, and to require little adjustment to those who include this setting. Gets little dirt and it's easy to clean. Fundamental issue, it costs little, 45 EUR in Italy (delivery included, it's sold by mail), against the 45 USD it costs in the U.S. Like all the accessories aimed at fine-tuning, but in an even more evident way than usual, the Donut delivers different levels of performances (appreciable anyway) depending on the layout and on the intrinsic quality of the turntable. It almost made me cry at miracle when placed upon an old, but still strong, price/quality ratio champion like the Sansui SR 222 MKII. It has showed impressing results with a Fidelity Research Professional (by the way, those who are looking for a pro, direct-drive turntable capable of real audiophile performances at a very reasonable cost, try to find on the second-hand market this record player, instead of that "famous DJ turntable" that, I'm sorry to insist, has very little of audiophile gear). The Donut has demonstrated its, I'd say, significant contribution to the top performance of a superb-breed turntable like the Thorens TD 124, while with another and more modern record player I regard as excellent, the Yamaha PX 3, the outcome, though rather significant, has been less outstanding. Placed upon the acrylic platter of an Empire/Benz 998LE, it just seemed to be born to be there, and the same with the Clearaudio Solution. With many record players it works at its best if directly laid, as logic would require, upon the bare platter, while with other turns out excellent in plot with the original mat (with the Thorens 124 for instance, whose original mat is hard to replace). I couldn't try it (guess why?) with the Transcriptor. To summon up, anyway, a mat that is unlikely to make you regret the bucks you spent for it, regardless of the extent of the improvements you will achieve. This is one of these rare items that a reviewer can be recommend even blindfolded and with no major problems with his conscience. Perhaps you'll say I'm deaf, but I surely won't have sent you bankrupted