Herbie's mat with NAD 533

While Narrod has a good point below I ignored advice like that when upgrading my NAD. I got rid of all the wow issues and the glass platter that Ekobesky suggest went a long way to help in that direction.

Have a look ... http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1216855871&read&3&4&

I subsequently moved on to a Thorens TD111 idler and a Technics SL1200 direct drive. I like those tables better. The NAD in relation is a thinner sounding table with less oomph and presence. You can translate that as the NAD having a more gentler/delicate sound. In any case, with all the mods, the sound solidified, and increased in depth.

Is it "worth" doing the mods, you ask. If that is your table and you want the fun of hearing things incrementally get better, then YES. If you want to wind up in the end with a very worthy table while doing it on an affordable budget, then YES. If you want to learn a little on the way, YES. If you want to have a better table now, then NO.

I can say at the end of the process you will have a hard time selling the table with all the mods; no one wants a hacked up table, and that is the way people will look at it. Alternately you will have a hard time parting with the thing will all the love you have put into it. And it will be a very worthy table to have as a second table for mono, or just 45rpm play.

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I used a DIY spotmat on each table and like it very much.
For help with that go here: the Analog Dept

I recently bought a funk firm Achromat which beat the spotmat by a few points but that mat was about $100. Spotmat cost about $5 to make. You could actually just get those stick on cork dots at ACE hardware and apply them to the top surface of the glass platter. Don;t like it, peel 'em off. cleans up easy.

Adam18, That link I posted earlier was a mistake. Here is the one I wanted to post: http://home.comcast.net/~omaille/audio/NAD533/NAD533.html