Description
Yellow Bird Isolator
My name is Zsolt Fajt, I’m an entrepreneur from Budapest, Hungary
with a technical background. Growing up, I have been influenced by
my dad’s deep knowledge and love of hi-fi audio systems. I have
learned to appreciate and respect my devices and understood the
importance of developing my sound systems with courage in order to
get the most out of them. This motivation led me to train myself as a
sound engineer and build a recording-mixing studio in Budapest,
with which I have had the opportunity to participate in numerous
Hungarian and international productions.
About 25 years ago, I purchased my first turntable, a Thorens TD320
MK2, and that is how the “chase of sound” started. Newer turntables,
cables, washers, weights, clamps, insulators, pickups, and so on, but in
no way did we overcome the weaknesses we think of as the original
defects of vinyl. Among other things, the pronounced “hiss”
phenomenon- the hissing of the recorded “Sh”, “S”, “Tz”,
“Ch” sounds-unstable basses, unstable visualisation of space, low
volume tolerance, etc. I was pretty sure it was all a function of the
environment and I felt that something basic was missing.
As a sound engineer, I know very well that recording, mixing and
mastering recordings has been done according to a very precise set of
rules since “ancient times”, which guarantees that the release takes
full advantage of that standard. In other words, I firmly believe that
there is the same stable sound on the analog disc as I get in the
digitalised format, but I am just unable to get that out of it.
One thing to be aware of is that while listening to music, driving our
system at a comfortable volume (which means that music can be
heard through articulation at every point of a room), we bring
enormous energy to the air. We make many cubic meters of air
vibrate. This vibration passes through gaps, doors, windows, walls, so
it’s easy to imagine the amount of forces that are at work. Our air-
related devices also receive this energy. This means that, after the
amplification process, the wave from the disc starts to travel off the
loudspeaker at a speed of sound and, echoing from the features,
returns to the device with some delay, which occurs as a vibration at
the point of contact of the needle. Because it returns to the same
wave it read milliseconds before, it will manifest as phase distortion,
which increases exponentially with increasing volume and results in
inaccurate groove tracking.
Another important power system occurs at the point of contact of the
needle. These are the gravity (needle pressure), the centripetal and
centrifugal forces (these two are controlled by anti-skating) and the
friction (due to the rotation of the disk and the position of the needle)
to stop the disk. These are tremendous, well-defined forces that occur
at the interface between the needle and the disk at a few square
microns. If these forces are properly balanced, groove tracking will be
accurate.
The physical rule of thumb is that as the weight increases, the
vibrations on the device are better absorbed. Harmful vibrations can
be independent of us (e.g. various drives, busy roadways in front of the
house, air corridor, etc. …) and the vibrations we create when we listen
to music. We expect heavy platforms, tens of pounds of plates on
which we are almost trying to “melt” the record, to dampen the
vibrations of the record to near “nothing”. As I have traversed many
branches of this road, I have felt more and more precisely that it is not
the direction that we endlessly increase mass and surface, but the
exact opposite. I tried to get the size of the contact surfaces close to
zero. The total contact surface of a record is several decimetres square.
Using the HEXMAT isolator, this surface is close to zero, just 1-2 square
millimetres, and the disk is almost floating. This is, to say the least, an
“endless” difference.
With its internal structure and coating, the HEXMAT isolator isolates
these damaging vibrations from the record, generating full power
transfer between the platform and the disk, and utilises the vibration
damping properties of the spherical form. The HEXMAT isolator is a
clamping mechanism that separates the record from the vibrating
mass it contacts and allows the vinyl to have its own fairly good
damping properties. The sound extracted from the disc is thus
accurate, the transients are strong, and the notes are clear, without
any harmonic distortion. Also, details of the recorded sound that were
previously covered due to distortion will become clear.
Instrumental measurements prove that at -0.3 dB output control
increases the volume by +0.2 dB on average. Although these
measurements also showed that the dynamics of the sample had
increased, this change in volume was inversely true of the “silences” of
the recordings, as shown by the difference between the two end
positions of the VU meter. Less noise due to more accurate groove
tracking.
The idea of the HEXMAT isolator was born in my head more than 15
years ago, but somehow it has always been overshadowed. Then
changing circumstances provided an opportunity where I made the
first prototype and became convinced it was working, which I had
only suspected until that point. The past 3 years have been spent in
further development. More than 100 prototypes were made with a
variety of material compositions. Not to be exhaustive: a variety of
polymers, stabilised wood species, tropical trees, industrial metals,
ceramics, gold, silver, crystals, gemstones, various coatings, etc. During
this time, we have experienced what works, what does not, what, how
to produce it. The range of variations is almost inexhaustible. Because
the combination of materials used has a dramatic impact on sound,
we are planning to release several product variants. Our current
product is a first series entry-level device.
HEXMAT isolator is manufactured in Budapest, Hungary. We
manufacture and inspect each piece individually, so we can take
responsibility for the quality of our product. The product is protected
by an international patent.
Yellow Bird Isolator
Same Grooves New Vibes
• 15 contact points on each side
• Perfect grip with other platter surfaces
• Enhanced dynamics
• Cleaner transients
• Sonic Improvement
• Full torque transfer
• Anti-static feature
• 3 mm thickness / 76 gram weight
• 7″ / 10″ / 12″ record compatible
• Compatible with most of the turntables
• Designed to be compatible with clamps and weights
Yellow Bird was compared to other turntable mats on the market
Dimension:
Full diameter (corner to corner): 27.5 cm (10.827 inch)
