Vinyl fans: what's your take on 'table mats?

Rubber? Cork? Felt? Sorbothane?

I've tried 'em all. They all sound different.

But with the assumption that mats are to control unwanted resonances, sorbothane would seem to be the answer. Yet many claim that it deadens the sound and kills the soundstage. And Roy Gandy more or less insists that the felt mat be used on Regas, saying that there should be no compliance introduced between the stylus and platter. Yet my planar 3 sounds much smoother and less aggressive using the AudioQuest sorbothane mat.

What do you people use, and why?

 

I use no mat. I've tried almost all of them (except the new one from Herbie's), and they all change the sound in a way that seems unnatural to me or that causes a new problem while solving another. In any case, with my current VPI 'table it's not really designed to use a mat (because of the way the clamp works) so I don't have to think about it. It's reduced at least SOME of my audiophile nervosa!

John K.

 

Rega, P3 for me. And I use the stock mat because nothing else sounds right. I've tried cork, and wasn't impressed.

 

I played around with a few mats on my Thorens TD-160, including the Platter Matter. I've stuck with the stock felt mat on my Linn LP12, and haven't bothered to try anything else. But I'd be inclined to trial the Ringmat when I get back to playing records (that won't be till I go back to Oz next year). Fremer reported in the last Stereophile that he had found a very good mat, the best so far, but it was $300. Typical of Mikey - he likes the expensive stuff.

Regards,
Geoff

 

Is the idea that the platter is supposed to become 'part' of the record, or isolated from the record at all costs?

 

I don't use a mat on the VPI Scout. No need to, just clamp the record to the acrylic platter and go.

 

Not rubber, for sure.

The platter should support the record and keep it from moving (except around-wise), so I guess it should ideally become 'part' of the record.

So far I've had the best results with no mat; I'm too cheap to spring for the expensive ones just on the off chance. (Also records lay flatter, strangely enough.)

I give the platter a swipe before putting a record on.

 

I have a VPI, no mat and i like it that way.

 

Hello Beagle

My hypothesis on TT design, the one I'm following in the construction of my Teres, has to do with transfer and damping of stray vibrations.

Mats are part of this concept, as they are the first interface between the Lp and the rest of the TT.

At this point my concept is loosely as this:

1) The playing of a record generates stray vibrations, not only resonances, which are just a small fraction of the vibrations, but audio-band energy that is not turned into stylus/coil movement and electricity, but instead goes outward from the stylus/Lp point of contact.

2) There are two main paths for this energy to flow, one is the tonearm assembly and the other is the Lp itself. We are dealing here with the path through the Lp.

3) In my design concept, it is desirable for this energy to find a flow path beyond the lp, ergo, no mat, a tight clamp, and additional elements to improve the interface between the platter and the Lp regarding vibration transfer. If the energy doesn't find an easy path out, most of it will bounce between the physical boundaries of the Lp, re-stimulating the stylus and causing time smear.

4) So the question of which mat deals with the following: If the energy is transferred to the TT platter and presumably beyond, will it be damped more than if it is not?

And your choices are either to use no mat, or a damping mat. And all the in-between solutions that make this an interesting hobby and an interesting business.

Of course there are more things involved, for example, the stray energy produced by a light-tracking high-compliance cart is much less that the one produced by a stiff 2+ gram tracking 10 cu cart. So with a V15 in a SMEIII, this may be a non-issue or a minor issue, and could be the reason why that school of design was abandoned decades ago, as it might eventually have led to all carts and TTs sounding the same.

Also, both the designers and the listeners may like to have some or lots of stray energy/smear/distortion, as it may sound better to them.

Best regards.

 

Does this also refer to the increased 'groove chatter' you hear coming from the record when you turn the volume off? I've noticed the Shure, for example, is much quieter in this regard. I've always wondered if this 'chatter' finds it's way into the cartridge as a residue vibration.

Thank you for the very interesting info proufo. I have saved it and printed it off. It helps explain the concept and potential sources and patterns of vibrations and resonance.

 

I use the graphite mat that comes with my Yorke - I liked the sound of the turntable as it was and haven't got round to tinkering. The only thing I have done is to put the Slate platform on a set of Aurios isolators.

All the best - Andrew

 

Yes, the same action (rubbing a diamond stone through a wavy path) that produces electricity at the cart, also produces vibrations in the air.

One can say that the energy that is not turned into cantilever movement is noise, and the one that does is a signal, and talk about a mechanical signal to noise ratio. This ratio is high with V15's, and low with, say, Koetsus. How the abundant stray energy is dealt with noticeably changes the sound.

But arguably, Koetsus are matchable or tunable, so depending on the arm and the TT (and the tweaks, and the this and the that) you can look for a combination that pleases your ears, that is, you enter the path of the true audiophile.

V15s would sound more or less the same no matter which arm or TT you use, except for gross mismatches. Not much fun there for the audiophile. Very little to think about, so perhaps it is easier to just enjoy the music.

The above is pure speculation.

 

Another VPI user and np mat either. And i prefer the 1 piece Delrin clamp over the 1 Piece stainless clamp. Livelier sound this way.

 

When I was building some 'tables about 20 years ago, I used variously...

stock rubber
felt
suede/chamois leather
none (no mat on a dead platter with a flat vinyl LP glued to it)
modelling clay (with saran wrap cover)

They all did things differently, and this was with reasonably high compliance cartridges from ADC, Ortofon and Shure.

I think most manufacturers have sorted out the best balanced mats for their decks; even my Garrard 301 sounds best with it's stock thin ribbed rubber mat (the platter rings badly without it, any way)

Linns and Regas can be tuned with mats (Rega even do this themselves.. compare a planar 2 mat to a planar 3 mat...) but it's better to use them as is in a synergistic system.

The only non-subjective test I saw on mats involved tipping a plastic rod onto the edge of a playing silent disk and capturing the cartridge output on a waveform analyzer. Quick and dirty, but it was an interesting comparison. The tester came to no conclusions, except that some platter disk combinations (the clamped test was on a Townshend Rock) were much more dead than others and that changed the sound.

I wouldn't use a VPI without the clamp for the same reason I wouldn't put one on a Sondek or Rega.. it's a balance thing.

Mike

 

This is a great thread! Currently, I am using the stock felt mat on my Music Hall MMF 7. I've been wondering about what I'm going to do when I get my vintage turntable. Presumably it will be a Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference so a mat will be a non-issue, but just in case I end up going with another model, it's nice to have some opinions on this. As far as the sound of my MMF 7, I have no complaints about resonance or stray noise. It's as quiet as my cd player.

 

Same here on the glass platter of my Planar 3. I use the standard felt mat that came with it.

I went through a period of trying a Ringmat, after I'd read Michael Fremer recommending one in place of ANY felt mat (presumably on ANY table ... I think it was in his review of the MMF-7 in Stereophile). I used the Ringmat for a while, and I did hear a bit of tightening of the bass (individual notes were a little more distinct, and the low end overall was leaner), and a bit more detail. But IMO it came at the expense of a certain midrange richness that I definitely missed. When I put the felt mat back on, it just seemed to deliver an "oh yeah" feeling to my ears that the Ringmat didn't.

Your mileage may vary, of course. But I decided to leave the Planar 3 pretty much as Mr. Gandy designed it, with the felt mat.

 

Mat for turntable