Technics 1200G - clamp record weight or no record weight?

@chakster 

Thank You for the clarification on the Micro Seiki platter mats and record weights. Much appreciated. Will investigate.

Dear @nkonor: Flat records makes a difference for the better that's why MS, Yamaha, Luxman and many other TT manufacturers came/comes with a vaccum record hold down mechanism.

Try to find out the after market the vintage Audio Technica  AT665BX or the AT666, these ones comes with vacuum hold down  mechanism and works really fine. You don't have to spend 2.850K Euros .

In the other side the best mats are not metal ones, normally metal goes against quality levels.
The Acrilic that you are using confirm it and the best to have is the original SOTA Supermat in combination with the reflex Basis Audio clamp that's better than the Sota reflex. Of course that exist other non-metal mats as other gentlemans shared here and even there are Technics owners that prefers no clamp.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Yeah, you can always cut your carpet to put it on the disc as an alternative to beautiful Micro Seiki Gunmetal mats.

This is from Denon engineers:

"Low frequency limit rof the cutting on the disc is approximately 20 Hz, therefore, the signal at lower frequencies than that is not supposed to come out. However, subsonic noise under 4-5 Hz tends to be reproduced larger due to the warpage of the record disc. For the audio instruments which originally deal with the audible range signal, signal close to DC is not a close friend. Such evil effect as modulation distortion is caused on the signal in the audible range due to the undesirable low frequency range signal being sent to the amplifier or the speaker."

Do you want to continue without record weight or clamp ?

I have a GAE and a Prime and use an LP1, a VPI and a KAB from time to time, but also use nothing a lot of times.  Can't say it makes a huge difference if the records if flat.  If the record is warped then one of the above will sound better than the others, but can't say which.  It varies with the record.  Crazy I know, but I make a note so the next time around I know what setup works best for any given records.  Also, the same is true on the Prime with the periphery ring, sometimes it is better to leave it off.

@chakster I see what you mean. The clamp you are using would reduce slipping of the record by coupling it laterally to the spindle.  Neat idea.