Pigskin or jico leather mat


Does anyone here know where to buy a new pigskin or jico leather mat? I can’t seem to find a retailer- I am uk based

lohanimal

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

Ralph, the two or three times I have disagreed with you, you have been so freaking nice! I vow to not disagree with you any more. If you were to declare the Earth flat I would let it go. Seriously. If I disagree with you again I will just ask you a diplomatic question. 

@fsonicsmith Thanks! And don't worry about it- The key to dealing with argument on the 'net is to not take it personally, and in the long run you make more friends! 😀

Just not true. This again is where intuitive/rational/objective/measurement based talk diverges from something called "listening". A platter pad with the same durometer as vinyl (is there such a thing as "the vinyl"?) may sound best with one turntable/arm/cartridge combination while a copper, cf, or bare aluminum (as Harry Weisfeld advocated for years with his turntables) may sound best with others.

@fsonicsmith FWIW, when I first heard a proper platter pad designed around the points I previously mentioned, measurements didn’t come into it for many years- it was all about the listening as you say! To your point: every turntable we tried the mat on sounded better than every turntable that didn’t have the mat; it was making a bigger difference than the cartridge, arm or turntable itself! IMO its a real shame its not made any more! The designer (Warren Gehl of ARC who spent many years designing it) of the mat once told me that the hardness of the mat is a key factor. This suggests that one could make a reasonably good mat if it were simply pressed of vinyl and otherwise had materials embedded (as his mat did) that also provided damping properties.

I have pondered just making one 

The job of the mat is to control vinyl resonance while the cartridge is tracking the groove, thus preventing the vinyl from talking back to the cartridge. This results in measurably and audibly superior performance.

To do this, the platter pad has to have the same durometer as the vinyl itself.

To know if the pad is doing its job, turn down the volume all the way. Play an LP and listen to the sound emanating from the cartridge itself. If you can hear it from more than a foot away the platter pad is falling short of its goal.