Difference between felt and rubber mat.
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NoTransistors
Dual Turntables Super-Restorer
Different mats sound different on different turntables.
Shackman55
Super Member
I think the translation would be, "Try it and see what you think" Personally I had tried a felt (actually I doubt it is actually felt) mat from Sleevetown and it made a world of difference in my static issues, so I bought a bunch of them and put one on each of my tables, give them away as Xmas/Birthday gifts. Trying to figure a way to make a jacket out of one. I love em! But that's just my results. Yours may vary. Come to think of it, I do use the stock mat on my Denon in the kitchen, just cause the height thing didn't work. Also sort of makes me feel like I am setting my vinyl on a gentle cushion, protecting them from that hard rubber mat.
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Pio1980
AK Member
The felt and cork mats don't damp the platter resonances used in place of the original mat, the original rubberlike mat does. That will affect the sound, adversely. Another result may be making the disk sensitive to airborne sound vibrations from the speakers, setting up an effective reverberation feedback loop that will add euphonic but artificial colorations to the sound of the system.
My instinct is to trust that the designing team that engineered the 'table knew what they were doing when they spec'ed the mat.
My instinct is to trust that the designing team that engineered the 'table knew what they were doing when they spec'ed the mat.
Practically any rubber mat will do an adequate job of damping the bell resonance of the platter, but an awful lot of mats seem to have been designed to look cool or something of the sort, and experimenting with mats is reverseable, so it's worth trying. Higher end tables often have a very intentionally designed mat, and there it probably makes sense to stick with the original, unless there is some specific reason to change.
Our emotional response that softer must be better really isn't justified -- the mat and the record are both flat, and even a metal mat (which exist) won't damage the grooves.
What most designers think a mat should do, other than damp the platter, is manage the vibrations in the record, caused by the stylus and by the soundfield. The issue here is the interface between the record and the mat -- if both are very similar in their impedance, vibrations ought to transfer easily from the record and away, rather than being reflected back. The problem with that is that the vibrations then have to transfer to the platter and then to the bearing, and at each interface, there is an opportunity for reflection. So some designers want a very soft material, so that the vibrations are reflected immediately, others want a vinyl or simlar mat to transfer with little impedance mismatch, and still others want a very hard mat, to take the transferred wave away very quickly.
You can see all sorts of complexities all over the place,hence the try it and see advice.
Our emotional response that softer must be better really isn't justified -- the mat and the record are both flat, and even a metal mat (which exist) won't damage the grooves.
What most designers think a mat should do, other than damp the platter, is manage the vibrations in the record, caused by the stylus and by the soundfield. The issue here is the interface between the record and the mat -- if both are very similar in their impedance, vibrations ought to transfer easily from the record and away, rather than being reflected back. The problem with that is that the vibrations then have to transfer to the platter and then to the bearing, and at each interface, there is an opportunity for reflection. So some designers want a very soft material, so that the vibrations are reflected immediately, others want a vinyl or simlar mat to transfer with little impedance mismatch, and still others want a very hard mat, to take the transferred wave away very quickly.
You can see all sorts of complexities all over the place,hence the try it and see advice.
My SL-1210 came with both a rubber mat for real world playback and a felt mat for scratching. My AT-PL120 came with only a felt mat which says something about it's design priorities, either that it was intended for DJs (not that there's anything wrong with that) or cost cutting. With it's stock felt mat the PL120's light platter would resonate after a light tap. A 1/4-inch cork mat did dampen that quality. Maybe a $25 store bought rubber mat would also have dampened it's resonances, but the cork mat cost $2.50 plus tax and a bit of my time to trim off four square corners. Felt mats can stick to records after playing a side (static cling, I suppose). Usually they will fall back down from their own weight, but there was that one time I put an album away and wondered where my felt turntable mat had gone.:scratch2:
I just weighed the mats on my turntables: The Toshiba SR-F770's geometric pattern mat weighs 8.85 oz. The smooth and very substantial mat on the Dual CS 5000 weighs in at a whopping 19.35 oz. Even though the Dual's platter is damped, I'd expect the damping and sound to suffer with a lighter mat.
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GreatTone
Super Member
I experimented with a few mats before settling on one. I tried the "Sonic Bliss" mat, which came on the TT I bought last year, and is nothing more than black rubbery shelf liner in a kind of mesh pattern. To be honest, I thought it sounded great, but it left marks on my albums (the marks eventually faded, but still, not something I want to do to my albums). Then I tried the cork dots approach, arranging cork discs in a pattern on the platter. This did not work well at all for me, maybe because my platter is aluminum and prone to ringing. The cork dots did weird things to the music, like making everything sound echo-y and overly bright. I tried the felt with carbon fiber (like the one pictured above), and thought it didn't sound as good as the shelf liner. Also, it didn't seem to help with static, and in fact it left lots of fibers on the album. I really wanted to like it, since it was only $10!
I also tried a dense rubber mat off an old Pioneer TT I have, but that didn't sound good either. Maybe it was too much damping, but the music sounded dull and lifeless.
So, not being happy with any of those choices, I sprang for a Herbie's mat after hearing lots of good things about them. I've never looked back, and I'm really happy with it. Once I got it, I started just listening to music again, and stopped fiddling with mats. It's a tad pricey (the one I got was $77), but it does sound better than anything else I tried. It stays on the platter, and doesn't lift off with the album, and is easy to clean when it gets a little dusty.
I'm sure different types of mats work better with some TTs than with others, so any of the available options may be fine with your particular table. I like the Herbie's, and I'm sticking with it.
I also tried a dense rubber mat off an old Pioneer TT I have, but that didn't sound good either. Maybe it was too much damping, but the music sounded dull and lifeless.
So, not being happy with any of those choices, I sprang for a Herbie's mat after hearing lots of good things about them. I've never looked back, and I'm really happy with it. Once I got it, I started just listening to music again, and stopped fiddling with mats. It's a tad pricey (the one I got was $77), but it does sound better than anything else I tried. It stays on the platter, and doesn't lift off with the album, and is easy to clean when it gets a little dusty.
I'm sure different types of mats work better with some TTs than with others, so any of the available options may be fine with your particular table. I like the Herbie's, and I'm sticking with it.
