A $300-$400 turntable tweak

Thanks Jonathan,
I have a 450gm centre clamp on my belt-drive Raven AC-3 and a 640gm clamp on the DD Victor TT-81.
Both clamps seem to improve the sound but at least never do harm.
Based on your impressions I shall continue to use them :-)
Do you know if your adjustable weight clamp is still available?......and if so, do you have a link?
Cheers
Henry

Jonathan Carr using a direct drive turntable,...WHAT!
Would someone please speak up and set this guy straight,...

Johnathan I am a recent convert to your Kleos cartridge and now I am hooked, that is not easy to do and now I have to listen to the Olympus.

Regarding centre weight's and or peripheral rings, I don't use them on my tables. I sooner play with special platter mat's, new and vintage.

I also tried a few different center weights for my VPI (with and without the rubber washer). I found that none of them improved on the sound of the original one piece Delrin VPI clamp and washer. Most sounded worse.

I have not tried a ring because I only have a few rarely played records that show a warp with the Delrin VPI clamp. I do have a speed controller, which means the peripheral weighting would probably have a minimal effect on speed stability, so I find it hard to justify that extra cost.

To some extent, there is bound to be a trade off in using a record weight and ring. While you will flatten records and get better coupling between record and platter, you may increase bearing noise through the added weight of those two pieces. That added noise combined with better coupling of the platter to the record, may significantly increase the noise heard through the stylus. It may also render some bearings inadequate or non functional, such as an air bearing or magnetic bearing. On my Transrotor Fat Bob, which has a magnetic bearing, I havent heard a problem using both, but it already has a massive platter and magnetic bearing. On a Rega, you might have a different result.

Manitunc,

I agree, magnetic bearing's like yours and on Clearaudio's bigger CMB tables are unaffected by the additional weight.