What are the audio differences you hear with turntable Mats.

I never heard a difference in mats with a Rega TT, either a P3 or P8.

@drbond 

You really have to do the audition against a decent platter pad. If all the ones you used were so much junk you probably would not have heard a difference. Those machines are fine for hearing the difference.

I tried felt, cork, rubber and settled on Acrylic, to me Acrylic sounded better to my ears.  Now I don't use a platter mat as I upgraded my turntable to a MoFi Deck

@atmasphere Is there an Acrylic mat that you have had good luck with?

@aberyclark Yes!

As you might know, acrylic can be different durometer (hardness) values depending on how its made. What you want is the same hardness as vinyl so you get maximum coupling of vibration from the LP to the platter pad without reflections.

The Oracle platter pad is the best one I've seen and we used it our our Atma-Sphere 208 turntables while they were being made (we stopped after the Technics SL1200G was introduced). It must be bonded to the platter to be effective; it has a permanent sticky back for that purpose. So if you use it on something like the Technics SL1200, which has 3 screws holding the platter to the motor, the screws can't be installed otherwise you can't remove the platter!

So you have to think about the installation prior to actually doing it 😉

I recommend doing something besides the platter pad to damp the platter as well. One of the reasons our 208 was so quiet, like the SL1200G, is both platters are damped. This really helps bass impact but makes the mids and highs smoother too.

Interesting. I wonder if an Acrylic mat without the adhesive would be an improvement over the stock 1200g mat