Acrylic Platter Mat or Whole Acrylic Platter?

[Martynt74]

The felt mat i have on my Project Essential turntable seems to attract dog hair in my house. Even with the cover down it seems to always be there!

My wife asked what i wanted for my birthday and for lack of other ideas i suggested an acrylic platter mat. Unfortunately the one i initially picked doesn't seem to fit on my turntable (hole is slightly too small). Rather than drill it out i thought i'd try this one

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gloss-Re...823427?hash=item4d52836083:g:ihMAAOSwux5YWUxm

However it made me wonder if i'd be better just going one further and getting the Pro-ject Acrylic platter for £85. Cost is neither here nor there really, it's about 2 records.

Anyone tried one over the other and can comment?

 

[hornetstinger]

Soft mats are best surely?

 

[lucid]

The felt mat remains probably the best acoustic solution where the platter is metal or a MDF/HDF composite material. I know Thorens and some vintage brands use rubber, but I haven't ever compared. However, there's something about the way acrylic handles energy that makes it great for Hi-Fi gear.

Pink Triangle were the first brand I ever noticed using acrylic, but that may have been incidental because they wanted a pink platter. Aside from turntables, some pioneers have been using it as equipment supports.

Personally, I'd go for the acrylic platter for a couple of reasons. First, it cuts down on the number of boundary layers between the spindle and the record itself. IOW, you're getting the full benefit of the acrylic medium without anything else getting in the way. Second, (and this is more of an educated guess than hard facts), I wonder if the vinyl mat would be thick enough to have some appreciable benefit without being so thick is changes the cartridge VTA?

 

[Martynt74]

I just assumed I’d have to reset the VTA and weighting to account for the change of height.

Think I will go with the platter. Just keeps things neater.