Question 1 – do turntable mats make a difference? I have just had a felt one on one turntable and the others have rubber. Since I am upgrading the cartridge on one I thought I would look into this 2.
Question 2 – if they do make a difference. What is recommended -felt, rubber, cork or cork/rubber hybrid? I even saw one site reviewing deer hide FFS!
Thanks
bump
Harking back to your cartridge thread. I bought the Ortofon Blue and had to swap my felt mat (on a Rega Planar 3) for a thinner cork mat due to the height of the cartridge. No idea if it sounds any better/different. Given it’s cork, possibly a ‘woodier’ sound at the bottom end (I may have made that up).
Answer 1: not much.
Answer 2: stick with what you’ve got. The mat forms part of the turntable design. Replacing a thin felt with a sheet of 1/4″ lead will put excess strain on the bearings.
A felt or rubber mat can be cleaned with Sellotape (other sticky tapes are available).
I have a cork mat, mainly because it looks nice.
Excellent reason Twang.
On the Linn forums the general concensus is that you should stick with the felt one supplied by Linn. And make sure it’s the right way up, not that you can tell.
I’ve tried changing to cork and thicker felt. It’s hard to be sure there’s any sound difference.
Course there isn’t. How could there be?
There’s a school of thought that the ideal platter material is vinyl because it doesn’t have the bell-like ring of metal. Resonance is best avoided.
The Pro-ject RPM 5 I borrow has an inch-thick acrylic platter, a felt mat, and a carbon-fibre plinth. Which part makes it sound so good, I’m not sure, but it does.
I can understand that, but I don’t buy that changing a felt mat to a thicker one or one made of cork could produce any difference in sound, unless perhaps you’re a bat.
Cork looks quite nice, and is meant to reduce static, which is an understandable reason to get one.
My Rega has a glass platter that weighs a ton, and a skinny piece of felt for a mat.
The felt mat has a certain insouciant lack of perfect circularity, which helps you to spot that the thing is still turning three hours after your last spin of the ‘Eight Miles High’ epic that’s on the second side of The Byrds all-mighty ‘Untitled’ album, the enjoyment of which was hopefully accompanied by a bifter of Olympian proportions.
Ah, ‘Untitled’ an album of such majesty no name was good enough.
In answer to mini the argument is presumably that some materials will be less amenable to transferring unwanted vibration which is helpful, there is the static issue and the generation thereof which can attract dust and the important criterion identified by Twang – does it look funky.
My question was about discernible sound difference between felt and slightly thicker felt or cork, and nothing else.
If I chose a mat based on looks alone it might be this one:
https://img1.etsystatic.com/214/0/12675259/il_340x270.1340070867_4dwa.jpg
Yes – on that one vibration issues including hum might be mitigated by choice of mat.
Arguments set out here
http://www.clefhifi.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=3869&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq9uu7vn-3wIVzzUrCh1kWAU7EAQYCSABEgIaMPD_BwE
Still seems like snake oil to me. Seventy dollars for a 12″ circle of thin leather? Holy cow! 😄
Only choose a thicker mat if your arm is height-adjustable, otherwise the VTA (vertical tracking angle) will be wrong, resulting in distortion.
I think this one trumps your Mini – a pizza mat.
https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/521514512/pizza-slipmat-dj-turntable-slipmats
Yum.
I think some turntables require mats of a certain weight otherwise they don’t rotate at the correct speed. I had a Dual one with an extremely heavy rubber mat. I may be wrong about this though.
Makes sense dunnit. Some of those rubber mats are quite heavy.
This is one reason why I don’t use one of those weight things known as clamps. Can’t be good for one’s bearings etc.
Well I bought a cork / rubber hybrid mat.$A30.00 I can now hear the faintest scrape of Dylan’s cufflinks on guitar, if not mistaken a slight pffffft as George Ivan blows some faecal matter out of his harmonica.
No to both these things but as Twang said – it looks great.
🙂
Post us a nerd-perv photo, then, Junior.
Oh alright then. Bit untidy with the cables from above but here ’tis
Phwoar!
Ding-dong!