Turntable Mat question

@rocky1313 Others have given you the clarification you asked for as well as I could.

Atmosphere ...I would like to ask you about using record for record mat.
You said that using an LP for record mat is trickier but should be the same hardness as traditional record mat. I have tried it ...sounds good.

@rocky1313 What I said was

But the LP is trickier- the platter pad has to be very nearly the same hardness as the vinyl (a durometer is helpful) to be most effective.

What I meant by this was that the interface with the LP is trickier to get right with a platter pad because it has to be the same hardness as the LP itself.
I have thought about using vinyl as part of a platter pad material, but as has been pointed out, an actual LP won't work because its the wrong shape. A platter pad has to be a complementary shape so its in contact with the LP surface and another LP or stack of LPs won't let that happen.

You do have to be careful with vacuum hold down. I have records that are permanently noisy on that account alone. 


A record mat has a specific job: control platter resonance and control LP resonance. If you can tap on the raw platter and it rings- the platter pad will help. But the LP is trickier- the platter pad has to be very nearly the same hardness as the vinyl (a durometer is helpful) to be most effective. Otherwise the pad will fail to absorb certain frequencies and may reflect them.

One way to tell your platter pad is working right is to turn the volume all the way down and just listen to the stylus in the groove. It should be pretty quiet. But if you can hear it from a foot or more away that's a pretty good sign your platter pad is failing at its job.