Playing around with my Cork Mat

[NoTransistors]

I have been using a full cork mat, with a slew of 1" diameter cork dots [punched out with an apple corerer] for record support near the edge]. Sounded pretty good.
Today, I replaced those 1" dots with 9/32" dots.
Sounds better. More bass. More background silence.
Seems like a record that is allowed to resonate may sound better than one damped by a mat, and the lack of support my mat supplies demonstrates this.

Seth
Forever Analog and Covered In Parrot Poop

[SaSi]

IMHO, your findings contradict a few decades in TT design and improvement. The platter mattes have been improved in becoming less resonant, to the extent of development of suction platters in the pursuit of total contact between the LP and the platter, to avoid both warps and resonance.

I remember a vintage British TT that had the LP supported by rubber studs, not very many around the platter and not very thick. It looked cool but sounded awful. Bass was greatly improved by replacing that thing with just a piece of rubber or a piece of soft leather.

Are you sure you are not mis-interpreting bass boom (which is a result of uncontrolled resonance) with extended low frequency response? In general, I have found better systems to sound "worse" in terms of both low and high frequency output.

[ehoove]

I can tell you this - the Thorens stock mat that has several concentric circles of raised ridges to suspend the record sounds terrible compared my DIY cork mat as well as several others I have tried.
Regards,
Jim

[NoTransistors]

I haven't a clue as yet. Might try more dots throughout the mat, for better support. The original Dual mat stinks [moulded like the Thorens mats], and shelf-liner mats seem dead, and felt mats sound fuzzy. My Dual is not high-tech enough to attempt clamping to the platter w/o a mat.
Ehoove: Is your cork mat with dots, or just a simple single sheet?

Or perhaps a narrowly-cut supportive ring?

Seth
Forever Analog and Covered In Parrot Poop

[jfine]

NoTransistors, I've been experimenting with cork mats and cork circles (like a spotmat) as well. I used about 1/2 inch circles, placed around like this:

http://www.theanalogdept.com/spotmat_10.htm

I have used cork circles with a full cork mat underneath, also tried with stock 1200 rubber mat and cork circles on top of that. (adjusting arm height each time).

I think the stock rubber mat with cork circles on top sounded better than a full cork mat with circles, maybe the rubber provided more platter damping then a full cork mat. Anyways, I thought decoupling of the vinyl from the platter was more logical than trying to clamp the vinyl to the platter thereby possibly transmitting more noise. Especially since I dont have a ten million dollar platter.

What Sasi says I think is 2 different things. One is trying to keep the record from resonating by clamping to platter, the other way is the cork circles is trying to decouple the vinyl from the platter to reduce noise transmitted to the tonearm. Both ways seem to have shortcomings.

I've tried a record clamp, but didnt notice much at all really. The Spotmat-type cork circles on top of the rubber mat did seem to clean up the bass, a bit more soundstage, but also lost something which I cant quite put my finger on. So I'm for now back to stock rubber mat. After all, someone got paid to engineer even that, no?

[NoTransistors]

Nice-looking mat, but if it were made of bird droppings, would still look good on a Thorens.
I think that WalMart has that stuff.
The huge, chain craft-store that I wandered into yesterday, on Long Island, possibly also stocks it.

Seth
Forever Analog and Covered In Parrot Poop