What are the audio differences you hear with turntable Mats.

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

@no_regrets , My Nantais Reference Lenco II has the Oracle mat adhered to the platter. Jean said it was the best-sounding of the many he tried. It works perfectly well with weights and clamps other than the one made by Oracle. Personally, I like the Origin Live Gravity One (out of many I’ve tried), which weighs almost nothing but sounds terrific on the Lenco.

It’s an interesting question.

I’m no expert but seems to me the mat helps isolate the stylus from any physical noise or vibration that might be transmitted by the motor to the stylus while playing. Just the way I look at it. I suspect felt pads are popular for that reason.