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It really MAT-ters

jkilla

jkilla

Out of Touch
I've been playing around with different types of mats on my turntable, and I'm finding that my very thin felt mat (1 to 1.5mm thick) sounds a little too bright? (upper end is a bit harsh) and the rubber mat I have (much thicker) is a bit too dull sounding.

I've tried stacking my felt mat on top of a sheet of shelf liner, and it doesn't make too much of a difference.

Is there something in the middle I can try? A thicker felt mat? I've tried a cork mat before, but I don't remember much other than the fact that I liked how the felt sounded in comparison.

Thanks!
 
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jkilla said:
I've been playing around with different types of mats on my turntable, and I'm finding that my very thin felt mat (1 to 1.5mm thick) sounds a little too bright? (upper end is a bit harsh) and the rubber mat I have (much thicker) is a bit too dull sounding.

I've tried stacking my felt mat on top of a sheet of shelf liner, and it doesn't make too much of a difference.

Is there something in the middle I can try? A thicker felt mat? I've tried a cork mat before, but I don't remember much other than the fact that I liked how the felt sounded in comparison.

Thanks!
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deer hide
 
I am so glad to be completely mat free. After buying a delrin platter I was able to get rid of the felt mat that came with my Rega table. The static pops and clicks completely dissapeared and everything sounds much clearer and quiet to me. Brightness, bass or anything like that wasn't really different. I think there is much more difference in what I put my turntable on rather than what is directly under the LP.
 
I made a mat from 3.5mm sheet cork. I bought it off a roll at the hardware store. Had to bake it in the oven between two junk turntable platters to get it flat. I like this much better than any of the rubber mats I've tried.
 
Almost anything can become a mat. I have a stainless steel mat, and a thin-film teflon coated aluminum alloy mat, as well as a thick sorbothane mat, alongside more typical rubber-y ones. You can make mats from felt, leather, cork, various plastics, rubber, paper/cardboard, wood, almost anything that can be cut into sheets...or even just punched into "dots" (small circular pieces). Larger discs can have smaller holes punched in them, and thus the percentage of total area which is supported, can be varied almost infinitely. "Sandwiches" of different materials can be tried (See the "Janus" DIY mat online, for an example of a 2-layer mat.) Heck, you can even raise a record a little in the label area (near the spindle) and leave the entire playing area unsupported: the no-mat mat. (Not really recommended now, but it was once, years ago!)

Experiment and see what works for you, with your TT and platter. The fun of mat experimentation is that it can be cheap, is usually reversible (unless you glue your mats down, which incidentally is a good tweak in most cases!), and it can have significant positive impact on sound quality.
 
I just remembered me and some friends made a record mat out of uncooked green beans(?) when we were kids. :D
 
I've experimented with a shallow nylon washer on the mat around the spindle. If you use a clamp that's very wide and places all of the pressure around its rim (like the out of production black plastic AT clamp) it 'cups' the record downward and presses it against the mat. It works well for flattening out warped records and making them playable.
 
I've been playing around with this ISOkinetic mat and so far really like it. http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=448004

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illini said:
I got the same result with the nitty gritty rcm w/pure rinse .
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I have a VPI 16.5 that does a wonderful job of cleaning along with the AIVS cleaners. But there is no RCM in the world that I know of that gets rid of static pops and clicks.
 
Different platter mats can make a world of difference. I messed around with them on my AT-LP120 which has a light hollow aluminum platter which came stock with a thin felt mat. Cork was a small improvement. A thick rubber mat from a Technics SL-1210 overdampened, killing the music's depth. The thinner 1210 rubber mat turned it into something hard to improve on - lots of depth, detail, and room for reverb and small sounds to break through. And yet that same type thin Technics rubber mat on my SL-B303 and SL-D303 sounds a shade more clouded.
 
Provided the mat gives stability, dos not slip, and supports the record fully (not just the label area or outer disc rim), it really is not worth worying too much about in the grand scheme of things. A change of cartridge and a thorough setting-up session will bring a far more noticeable improvement, in most cases, to the TT. There is a lot of baseless audiophoolery out there.
 
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