What are the audio differences you hear with turntable Mats.


I have always used a felt mat on my Linn Basik turntable that has an Akito tonearm and Rena Exacta 2 cartridge. What audio differences can one expect with different mats? Felt, rubber and acrylic. 

joscow

I selected my current mat by amplifying the weak spot of turntables and listening for which mat did the best job of reducing the audible effects of that weakness. 

When you know what to listen for and how to do it, selecting a mat becomes easy if you buy a few different ones to test.

the differences in sound are quite significant.

I concur with avanti, based on personal experience. I settled on Hexmat Yellow Bird on acrylic platter of Clearaudio, brings out more details yet not harsh and fatiguing.

If you are using a Linn mat and like the sound you may be interested in what is said to be an improvement on such.

https://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/collaro_red_felt_e.html

DeKay

I’ve been through myriad mats on my Technics SP10R, including the stock rubber, Oyaide BR-One, Origin Live (love their Gravity One stabilizer), Ortofon cork/rubber, both thicknesses of Acromat, the Herbie’s mat, and others. All sound notably, sometimes extremely, different, emphasizing or suppressing different frequencies. The one I settled on is Boston Acoustics Mat2 from Sakura Systems. To me it is the most neutral of them. But I do think the preference is likely to be turntable specific, so you have to experiment.