Does a turntable mat make any difference?

@atmasphere 

They are going to handle 5K and below. 5K and up is going to a Bricasti Design M25 which has a very low output impedance and doubles at least up to 2 ohms which is 600 watts. It has a HUGE power supply. I know the is less energy from 5K up, but you can not predict what the processor is going to do unless you have an amplitude graph of your Speaker/Room. Remember, I burned up (literally) a high frequency balance control with a processor that had no limits. Smoke and that acrid burning electronics smell. Whatever that takes to accomplish is what that JC 1 threw at that control. 1000 watts? The MA 2s are happy as a lark, this is where they do best with this speaker. What else can put 220 class A watts into 20 ohms. The JC 1s are down to about 75 watts at that impedance. And the MA 2s are rolled off at 100 Hz 48 8th order. They will be running 100 to 5000 Hz. I have the hottest midrange amps in town, with triggers no less.  The M25s have a crystalline high end like my old Krell KMA 100s. I can not believe this won't be an improvement. The only problem will be if I do not have enough room in the conduit for two more signal wires, it is 25 feet long:-(

What else can put 220 class A watts into 20 ohms

@mijostyn Sound Labs actually get to 30 Ohms in the bass. That's why solid state amps have a hard time driving them.

@atmasphere 

I was figuring 20 ohms at 100 Hz where I start rolling off.

@jjbeason14 

I would just toss it, it is probably garbage anyway. The plastic protractor that came with my MoFi Beatles set was crap.

I have 5 different mats and they all sound different.  Even the two mats that are made of felt sound different from each other.  The mats are also all different thicknesses, so there is that.  Even though I have the capability to adjust VTA on my head-shell, it is cumbersome, so I set it to sound best at a certain height above my platter and then substitute different mats for different records to achieve that approximate height by looking at where the record sits relative to the spindle.  I await the lecture on the small difference in cantilever angle that changes in height of the record at the platter will make.  I know what I hear, and it makes a difference to me, although some cartridges seem much more sensitive to VTA than others.

YMMV

kn

Yes, they do and you can forget about any specific recommendation from this thread unless they have your turntable, maybe arm combination.  There are simply too many variables.