Just get a cork mat - it comes from a tree! Several sellers on the Bay have them! I will eventually buy one to try out!
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I originally had a felt mat. Great if you like static electricity. Tried a cork mat left over from a U-Turn audio turntable I had. (You can buy one from them FYI). Meh. I tried the Hudson Hifi acrylic mat. Has an indent for the label. That’s good. But no accounting for the thicker lead in edge of the record. Gone. Now I have the Herbie’s Way Excellent II Turntable Mat. https://herbiesaudiolab.com/collections/turntable-mats/products/way-excellent-ii-turntable-mat?varia... It checks all the boxes. Has room for the record lead in edge. Great mat. Highly recommended and tried it based on someone else’s recommendation in this forum. |
The poor OP asked about a WOODEN record mat and so far I see not one relevant response.(Cork is not what he meant.) I’ve never seen or heard of a solid wood mat but it’s an interesting idea. Is there even a commercially made example? Perhaps the OP can say exactly what product he’s considering. If one wanted to go that way, the next endless question would be: what kind of wood? That subject alone should engender at least 100 responses. |
Wood per se would almost certainly make a very poor mat due it’s tendency to warp. What’s really required is to go to the root cause - the platter - and figure out how to damp it, no? We already know how to isolate it. The platter is analogous to the CD, which also vibrates and causes errors, even when the CD player is isolated. |
In response to Lew ...thank you for being supportive of my question about using a wood mat. I actually found a 12" round wood disk that I experimented with and drilled a hole to make it usable as a mat. The highs are better and clearer. The base is tight. Due to my curiosity, I wonder if anyone else experienced this. Wood disk mat I placed on metal platter. Technics SL 1600. |
Several times I had the opportunity to hear wonderful presentations of wooden-platter turntables made by www.holz-akustik.de Very natural and focussed sound. I guess they were presented at the HighEnd in Munich this month as well. |
Wooden mat is a nonsense, this is the worst material for a mat and nobody use a wooden mat. The wood constantly change it’s properties depends on the temperature/season. If it’s one piece of wood (not a composit layers) this is the worst scenario ever! It might be cool mat only under a teapod it in the kitchen Instead of worrying so much about the mat in case of improvement, it’s better to buy a decent cartridge first and improvement will be huge even on felt or stock rubber mat. I think at least 10 different mats have been offered to the OP in another thread, but as usual he started with something else. |
https://twogoodears.blogspot.com/2017/04/japan-triode-meetings-count-down.html The wooden "mat" in the third picture is very interesting. |
Dear @rocky1313 : Through the audio years wood already proven as a very good building material and we can find out in TTs as the Ters one and other units, in cartridges as Koetsu, Vdh, Benz Micro, Dynavector, etc, etc, but in tonearms too as Durand, Da Vinci, Schroeder and other ones. Wood is a material with long audio history and with the rigth " treatment " in its production there is no reasons to think it does not works as a platter mat. It can do it very well. Your experiences in your sample say it works . Btw, which the tickness in your wood mat? Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
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@rocky1313 : Btw, if wood works really fine in items extremely more sensitive than a TT mat as cartridges and tonearms ( I forgot: the Reed uses wood too. ) then go figure that it will works fine as a mat too. Btw too, wood came or comes in TT clamps with excellent results. I'm still interested in your wood thickness: can you share it? Appreciated, R. |
rauliruegas...... Responding to your thickness inquiry. Let me start from the beginning.... I saw a record mat made of wood for sale....don't remember where, somewhere on the forum. This gave me the idea ...I found a 11" round piece of wood , I drilled a center hole. Thickness is 1/2 " I am using it on my Technics sl 1600 ...sounds good. There have been some negative opinions and some positive. |
Some years ago, Chris Brady (Teres Audio) and some other a'philes got together to do a shootout between Chris' new wooden platter and his lead loaded acrylic platters. The wood platter was the hands down winner in every case according to those who were there. I don't remember the title of the thread at this time though. Of course, the wood platter has lead in it also. |
The Teres wood platter is an exceptional idea and a real world product, but it is several inches thick and very heavily finished to negate any possible problem with warpage. Probably that has a better chance of success than would a much thinner wooden mat, but it's certainly not crazy to try it. The temptation would be to use a hardwood to avoid warpage, but that might result in a "hard" sound. Like I said, the choice of wood species will make a great difference in the outcome, in my opinion. The thing is, if you make the mat yourself with your own hands, you're gonna love it. Be careful of expectation bias. I had a machinist make me a pure copper mat for my Kenwood L07D, to replace the OEM stainless steel "platter sheet" (a mat by another name), and of course, I love it. |
@uberwaltz I think @lewm has good points about different woods causing different sounds. Music instrument makers are aware of this. Maple seems to be a favorite. You need to clamp it down somehow. A record clamp would probably do it. I wouldn’t worry about speed fluctuations since the wood is laying on the platter which is turning at the right speed |
it is special treated wood to avoid cracks @totem395 As could be a wood mat. It could be, but can you imagine diameter of the armtube in comparison to the diameter of the platter mat ? Also did you made all the treatment with a piece of wood yourself? It’s not impossible to make a wood mat, but i’ve seen many products made out of wood glued together in pieces and all of them degrade in time, depends on the temperature (cold in the winter, hot in the summer) depends where do you live. A decent mats made of aluminum from SAEC and gunmetal from MICRO SEIKI, they last forever, mine are 40 years old. The last mat i bought was $250 THE MAT from Sakura Systems, i finally decided to try it on Denon DP-80 (heavy mat is not good for this table, so i just bought this new Graphite mat). This is the last incarnation of the highly regarded Boston Audio Mat. I think there are just so many better alternatives to the wood. And those mats can’t cause any problem. So why wood? You tell me. |
