Outer ring - who uses and what are your findings

Sound like it would be much cheaper to just replace a few warped records with new copies which will probably sound better anyway.

Sound like it would be much cheaper to just replace a few warped records with new copies which will probably sound better anyway.

Easier said than done when you've been collecting records for 45 years as I have.

I observed first hand today another benefit of using a clamp/ring on my rig today. I put on an old pressing of Chick Corea "Song of Singing" that's I've had for decades. I was doing a sound check pre cleaning and played the start at higher volume than I normal listen. I noticed my paid of subs with excessive excursion at the lead-in groove and beginning of play. After I added my 5+ lbs. of clamp and outer ring and started play again, the woofer pumping disappeared completely. The tight coupling of the disc to the POM platter certainly seems to help with LF stability.

An important comment about centre "weights" vs centre "clamps". 3-point/5-point centre clamps and tight full circle centre clamps act in a fundamentally different way on the vinyl record, compared with centre weights and gentle clamping mechanisms. All centre weights and clamps have the desired effect of coupling the vinyl record to the turntable platter. However tight active clamping has the undesired side-effect of stressing the vinyl, which audibly negatively affects the sound during playback.

Those clamps which have you spin the clamp until it gently grips in position do not tend to have this problem, but those which you push down hard and manually clamp tight are not recommended. The 3 or 5 pressure-point tight clamps are particularly bad in this regard. A centre weight, no matter how heavy, is not going to cause this problem. It is pretty easy to hear that my records sound better with my 1.4kg Nugget centre weight, while my Audio Technica 3-point clamp actually makes the same record sound WORSE than no weight/clamp at all!

This regardless of whether a ring weight is also being used.

Another important point about adding a centre weight OR a ring weight, specifically to a SUSPENDED SUB-CHASSIS turntable such as a Linn LP12 or Sota Sapphire.

These suspensions are tuned to the weight of the platter and everything which sits on it. The difference between the weight when playing a 200g or 120g record is not going to make an audible difference, but adding a 1.2kg ring weight or centre weight will, on many such turntables, be too great an additional weight to be able to compensate by tightening the suspension. In these cases, a LIGHTER weight needs to be used.

Just as importantly, if you tune the suspension to include say a 400g centre weight, then you MUST use that weight EVERY time you play a record, or the suspension will FAIL to do its job, with a much worse result than any gains you achieve by weighting the record.