Graham Doggett
6th November 2011, 02:21 PM
I have been fiddling about with DIY turntable mats again and have come up with a combination that has had a noticable improvement on my set up.
I would love to claim it was by carefull research but have to confess it was purely by chance.
From one of my turntable rebuilds I had a left over rubber mat. This was not ribbed or grooved, just plain smooth rubber both sides. ( sounds like a condom advert !)
Because it was so smooth records tended to slip a little so it was tossed aside.
The other day I discovered that Plastic Box had very thin shelf liner material that was the same as the familiar liner but only 1mm thick.
So --- I carefully glued a layer of this to the top of the rubber mat with a cut out circle in the centre for the label.
When I put this on my turntable in place of my cork mat I discoverd a very noticable reduction in surface noise from my worn second hand records, and even the pops and clicks seemed to have reduced, combined with improved clearer sound.
As an engineer I tend to be a sceptic and reject all the snake oil and BS that seems to be present in audiophile circles ( don't get me started on IC wires) so was very surprised that my tinkering produced such a noticable improvement.
This mat is now a permanent fixture on my Thorens/Sumiko turntable.
The mat is 4mm thick and weights 360 grams, I have no idea why or how it works, but it sure does.
Graham.:D
I would love to claim it was by carefull research but have to confess it was purely by chance.
From one of my turntable rebuilds I had a left over rubber mat. This was not ribbed or grooved, just plain smooth rubber both sides. ( sounds like a condom advert !)
Because it was so smooth records tended to slip a little so it was tossed aside.
The other day I discovered that Plastic Box had very thin shelf liner material that was the same as the familiar liner but only 1mm thick.
So --- I carefully glued a layer of this to the top of the rubber mat with a cut out circle in the centre for the label.
When I put this on my turntable in place of my cork mat I discoverd a very noticable reduction in surface noise from my worn second hand records, and even the pops and clicks seemed to have reduced, combined with improved clearer sound.
As an engineer I tend to be a sceptic and reject all the snake oil and BS that seems to be present in audiophile circles ( don't get me started on IC wires) so was very surprised that my tinkering produced such a noticable improvement.
This mat is now a permanent fixture on my Thorens/Sumiko turntable.
The mat is 4mm thick and weights 360 grams, I have no idea why or how it works, but it sure does.
Graham.:D