Replacing wool/felt mat

[denti alligator]

Anyone tried the Isokinetik isomat 1 acrylic turntable mat?

[mawari]

One word: leather...

Thanks to this forum and Berty and Alec's posts, I just made my first leather mat. Have tried it "suede" side down but right now it seems better suede side up.

Terrible phone pics ...





Needs to be flattened, but so far so good. Well worth the few yen spent.

Paul

[mawari]

One of the "shiny" side. With this side I don't need to switch off when changing sides ... might win the day yet.



Paul

[mawari]

And some leather pads for the 3 feet from the leftovers, just because ...



Paul

[hetfieldsmullet]

Felt leaves the bass a bit muddy. Cork gives more definition, overall.

Cheers,
Alec

I've tried this out over the last few days and totally agree. Cork gives so much better definition. I can't believe that such a simple change can make such a difference.

[resu]

All kinds of TT mats including leather and cork:
www.audioaffair.co.uk/index.php?page=2& ... t&catId=39

[Sandbah 92]

So what thickness should a cork mat be for a Rega p1 with a glass platter?

[Alec124c41]

3mm or 1/8 in. is about right.

Cheers,
Alec

[Sandbah 92]

Thanks, Alec. I've also seen cork mats in garden shops that are 12" circular. I'll have to check those out > one would then only have to cut a spindle hole.

[Sandbah 92]

Home Depot sells a 12 inch circular mat for $6.99 - it's 5mm or .19 inches thick. Has anyone tried this? Don't know if it's a bit too big in the depth department for my p1 with the glass platter.

[Alec124c41]

I have a couple of the planter coasters. If you measure very carefully, several times, you can get a pretty accurate center. Drill with a 1/16" or 2mm bit first, then you can use a 5/16" or 7.5 mm drill.
Try it cork side up and plastic side up.

Cheers,
Alec

[Sandbah 92]

Thank you again, Alec. I'm going to give it a shot > I've blown a lot more than $6.99 on upgrades. I'll let you know what it sounds like to me compared to the felt.

[musicmaker]

Hello all , ive just bought myself a rega 2 table and waiting on the delivery of my ortofon vms11 to arrive. Thought i would ask, my table has a rubber mat! would i be better off changing this?? to a cork or leather one ??

[fretlessVI]

OK, here's a seemingly strange replacement for the felt mat. I was doing an e-bay search on turntable mats for my P3/24 and I came across a guy who was selling an interesting looking mat, a sort of soft plastic mat that had an interesting pattern to it, like little interconnected squares. He was selling these for something like $20 each.As I studied the pictures I realized that I had seen this material before- in a dollar store! It was the same material that's used for table place mats.So I went to the dollar store, bought a place mat(for $2), used the platter from my TT as a pattern, and cut out a mat.And it worked really well, more and tighter bass and better overall definition. It made a noticeable improvement and you have a choice of colours. I continued to use this mat on my RP3 and only stopped when I upgraded to the GT acrylic platter which doesn't need a mat.