Tales of the Furutech Flattener

The Furutech Flattener Consortium was formed to make it economically practical for 9 or so Forum members, to use the Furutech Record Flattener. Since it’s debut at the Georgia Polkfest, about four of us had the opportunity to use it in our home environment. I thought I’d share a little of my experiences. Any of the other Consortium members who have used the flattener are welcome to add their experiences to this thread. Here is a stock photo:

My first encounter with the flattener was at the Georgia Polkfest. We unwrapped the briefcase size machine and immediately put it to work. We put it through the heating/cooling cycle (1 hour heat, 2 hours cool) on several of Ted’s LPs. The flattener successfully flattened out small warpage. The records played without any evidence of residual damage from the flattening process. Then we tried it on an album that was hideously warped, (kind of a leper in Ted’s vinyl collection) this album was so warped it could not have played. To our amazement, after one cycle the record played! The grooves were still, well groovy but the fact that the needle tracked at all was amazing.

I used the machine at my house to flatten about 10 LPs. I cleaned the records with my Nitty Gritty before inserting them into the machine. In all cases, the flattener was able to remove small warps without any problem. I didn’t observe any sonic effects or notice any “baked in” clicks or pops. I did not try the machine on any heavy vinyl.
I took the machine over to analog97’s house to service a few LPs while we listened to some tunes. Larry was generous enough to take a few photo’s and add his observations:
“Several LP’s were flattened that had "minimal-moderate" warpage. This is defined as a raised area not exceeding approximately 1/8" from the platter. These LP's were new or SOS "sealed old stock" and presumably warped from either temperature extremes during shipping or constriction of shrink-wrap during years of storage. Two were 180 gram vinyl. Results were outstanding. In all cases these LP's laid flat on the platter after the Furutech treatment. No audible sound impact.
Several LP's had moderate warpage, defined as a raised area exceeding 1/8"-1/4" imposing some difficulty in tracking with noticible tone-arm wobble. After treatment, significant improvement was noticed. However, as record warp approached about 1/4", results were not perfect, i.e. the record still had some, but far less, wobble. For LP's with moderate warpage as defined, the results are really quite exceptional.
One LP was unplayable (see pictures) on my Rega P3/2000-RB300 combination. The serious record warp at the edge would not permit the tonearm to swing on the rcord. This amount of warpage was probably about 3/8” at the edge. After treatment, about 90% of the warp was removed and rendered the LP very playable, but there was still some wobble, under 1/8” I’d estimate. I tried a second treatment and gained another 5% improvement. (see ‘after’ pictures) The final result was just a tad better after a second treatment, so I’m not sure if a second treatment should be recommended.”



Overall, this product grades out at a solid “A”. The only drawback is the $1,500 investment. If you own enough vinyl that is damaged and/or is irreplaceable, then this machine may be worth the investment. Bottom line, it works! If you have enough warped vinyl, but it!