Leather platter mats

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Ant
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Location: Yorkshire

#1 Leather platter mats

Post by Ant »

Made myself a leather platter mat from some 2mm dark green leather. Bought a 7mm punch for the centre hole and made a 293mm disc out of a birch ply offcut to use as a cutting template.

I an pretty surprised at the difference it has made, im not one for hyperbole, but compared to the heavy 6mm rubber one i have been using on the lenco for a number of years, i am getting a more natural presentation, a slightly more solid image which is a smidge wider, and a bit more control. Music just seems to flow better. completely subjective comments, but i cant think how better to describe it. It also seems to be quieter in terms of surface noise which i cant quite reconcile as to why

I wasn't expecting much difference if any, but its there

I have re set the arm height so that the vta is as it was too so the arm setup is the same as the heavy rubber one.

Need to work out how to get a slightly neater edge cut so i can make another one for the jvc
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IslandPink
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#2 Re: Leather platter mats

Post by IslandPink »

It does make a lot of sense, and well done for trying it.
I have always been of the opinion that any vibration that propagates through the vinyl to the underside needs to be coupled to something 'dead' to help take as much of it away as possible. Any of this sound that reflects back and ends up feeding into the cartridge is just time-delayed and modified in other ways so that it is just junk information.
I can imagine a leather surface being rather well coupled to the underside of the LP and pretty dead/damped to a wide range of frequencies as well.

My efforts in this direction ended with the Boston audio graphite mat ( for the Garrard , now with Lenny ) and the Nottingham Hyperspace with it's top platter section made from graphite-ceramic. Maybe there is still a case for trying out something like this, though ?
"Once you find out ... the Circumstances ; then you can go out"
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