My experience has been that the the ribbed seem brighter, clearer, and, more transparent. However, I have only owned a few of each type.Someone else might say that the smooth are more natural sounding and they might be right. I once tried a smoothe in one channel and a ribbed in the other channel of a phono section and the sound seemed "just right" compared to one or the other. It would seem silly to complain about the sound of the smooth plate, but, in a direct comparison I always prefered ribbed. It all depends on which direction your system needs to go. Resolution seems the same, it is just presented slightly differently.
