What are the audio differences you hear with turntable Mats.

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.

A platter mat is like subtle seasoning in your food. All types are subtly different from one another, and you as the diner need to figure out what’s best in your system.

What audio differences can one expect with different mats? Felt, rubber and acrylic.

@joscow The platter pad has two jobs: damp resonance in the LP when its being played and damp the platter as much as possible. When damping the LP, it must not reflect energy back. To this end, it has to have the same durometer (hardness) as the LP. If softer or harder, the platter pad will have a ’signature’; some will be bright and others dull and the bass is affected as well.

An easy way to tell how effective your platter pad works is to play an LP with the volume down and just listen to the stylus in the groove. If its audible that’s bad. It should be really quiet. When you can hear it, that’s the LP resonating a bit- in essence, ’talking back’ to the cartridge.

You’ll find that damping the platter has a nice effect on the presentation as well- better bass, smoother and more resolved mids and highs.

Felt, rubber and bare metal don’t cut it. The best commercial mat I’ve seen so far is made by Oracle. Its acrylic; acrylic can be made to match the hardness of vinyl.

@atmasphere 

The Oracle acrylic mat sounds interesting to me.  

However, when I read a description of it, it said ".....The acrylic mat is machined with a slightly concave surface which helps flattening of the record more efficiently when using the Oracle record clamp."

I don't use a record clamp with my turntable as it is not recommended (it's an LP12) so I wonder how this mat might work with it having the concave surface with out using a record clamp?  Any thoughts or ideas you could share with me?

Thank you and best wishes,

Don