Chris Harris
Active Member
Having decided to try the Collaro Audio turntable mat after hearing many positive comments. But what was to come was totally unexpected and a real surprise in its performance. Having spoken to Colin Dent at Collaro he explained the philosophy with both the construction of the mat and the reason for starting production back in 2018 in what seemed a crowded market place for turntable mats in allsorts of materials, His desire was to greatly improve the mat for the Linn Sondek LP12 having found after close inspection the Linn mat varied in both size and construction and he felt with the cost of Linn upgrades his remit was to improve greatly on the mat and importantly improve it's sonic performance. So having spoken to it's maker I was looking forward to some listening tests to see what it had to offer. My original plan was to do a shootout with other mats I had to hand, but after a listen to the Collaro in place it became academic as it was offering so much more that I had never experinced before. So down to the nuts and bolts - I played one of my go to reference albums Barry Reynolds - I scared myself (Island Records) which just comfirmed my opinion with Sly and Robbie just playing in front of me and hearing lovely extra detail never heard before. So this Collaro Mat really is like a major component change in the system which is a dramatic statement to make but that's what i'm hearing. The Collaro price - Red precision cloth £99.00 / Black precision cloth £120.00 and I can happily say this is the Audio bargain of the century in all what it brought to my system on my Well Tempered Simplex 2 with a Dynavector XX2 m/c cartridge. But I am sure many Linn / Rega owners will greatly improve their existing vinyl playback using the Collaro, and I am looking forward to trying the mat on my Townshend Elite Rock which Colin confirmed that it is suitable. And just to confirm how well the Collaro is thought of, The Uk's largest turntable manufacturer has ordered a large quantity of mats to be included with their new high end deck which is available later in the year so good news for the company. The finish is of the highest quailty hand made and specially produced woven and treated pure wool precison cloth made in England and even the printed logo is rather well done and tasteful. And you get that pride of ownership with this fine product and I would like to state that i have no connection with Collaro other than one very happy end user.