Outer Platter Rings


Quit curious about outer rings, but now the two well-known products TTWeights & Universal Record Stabilizing Ring are both no longer in production. Are there other interesting ones?

Do these have a beneficial effect?


sampsa55

I had a ClearAudio Ring. But after a while, I used the ring so little that I just got rid of it. It gets to be a pain if you use it often. The ring is large and heavy. You have to remove it and set it somewhere every time you change or turn over a record.


Ok here's what I found with my TTW outer ring.....
If you use ANY compressible platter mat on your turntable....it simply kills the dynamics. The 'air', transparency and 'life' of the recorded performance is simply suffocated.
It does however flatten warped records 😎
If conversely you use no platter mat but place the record directly on the platter (or use a solid metal platter mat)....the outer ring tends not to then rob you of those vital ephemeral nuances.
As I have but two or three discs warped badly enough to warrant 'flattening.....the ring is rarely utilised.

If conversely you use no platter mat but place the record directly on the platter (or use a solid metal platter mat)....the outer ring tends not to then rob you of those vital ephemeral nuances.

But is there a sonic benefit in this situation, apart from flattening records?

So if there is a benefit from a ring, it's very dependent on the material underneath the LP, i.e., the platter or platter mat. Miner42 above gets a benefit with VPI Aries 3, which I think has an aluminum platter presumably without a mat.

I can't say I've heard any sonic benefits with the outside platter ring (whereas I do hear benefits with a centre record weight).
The best I can say about the outer ring when used on a bare platter or metal mat, is that it didn't appear to degrade the sound....🙈

Sampsa55,  I encourage you to read the many threads on this very subject (periphery rings).  Consider the physics behind the objective of a stylus attempting to trace the grooves of a record, the resonances (energy) created by the stylus as it performs its function, and where does the energy get transferred.

Try to avoid these expressions of "sucks the life out of the record" or "deadens the music."  The critical listener either hears a truer reproduction of the sound or they do not.