Ring Clamps. What do you think?

This is an interesting thread. The people that make the Ringmat use no weight on top of the record at all, the argument being that it channels energy away and lets the record breath

The Ringmat, like many mats, is designed to ISOLATE the record from the platter. This is why it should be used unweighted.

However, the Ringmat doesn't "channel energy away". It barely has any points of contact, so how could it channel anything? What it does is (1) limit the amount of noise from the TT that gets into the record and (2) limit the amount of intra-vinyl energies that reflect off the platter and back into the record, as Lewm described.

As I just described, isolation works best on tables that are (a) noisy or (b) not particularly engineered or built to dampen/dissipate intra-vinyl energies on their own. Just guessing, but it might work well on your EMT 950, whose relatively lightweight platter may be subject to (b). OTOH, isolation provides no benefit on my main TT, which works best when the record is COUPLED to its high mass, energy absorbing platter.

ISOLATE the record FROM noisy turntables, COUPLE the record TO quiet ones.

As to records "breathing", I've yet to see one inhale or exhale. That's just pseudo-mystical marketing babble.

Some good reading for anyone interested in the nature of human hearing and what true hi fi actually does and what makes "AIR and SPACE"...location and distance in analogue music...compared to digital

Read both parts.

Also test reports of (spectral analysis) TTW Audio outer ring/mat and copper center weight.

http://www.ttweights.com/web-page_2.html

Thanks
Larry

Stringbean,
Ever notice the interlocking joints on the pavement of a long bridge? The bridge needs to have some play or it will surely collapse. That's engineering, same as with the guitar.
If you believe movement and air have no place in turntable design that is certainly an opinion your welcome to have.
I would think a heavy metal deadening ring would do just that, deadening the sound.
When is enough enough?

Larry- I took a look at the power point you link to on your web site. Unfortunately, it contains a very basic error in its argument that we can perceive energy with wavelengths far above what we typically call sound (>20 kHz). 10 microseconds DOES NOT EQUAL 100 kHz. Hz or kHz is measured in cycles per second. Time is measured in seconds. Time does not equal vibration. Regardless of that, let's go back to the example in the power point. The fact the we can perceive the difference between two sounds arriving 10 microseconds apart says nothing about our ability to sense vibrational energy in the kHz range (which, btw, is typically referred to as radio energy not sound or acoustical energy). I'll use an analogy. The fact that we can perceive which of two sources of light is brighter, tells us nothing about our ability to sense or be influenced by color. I'm not saying that we cannot perceive vibrational energy beyond the range of human hearing. But I can perceive bull$hit when I see it. Of course none of this says anything about the benefits of center clamping or ring clamping to LP reproduction. Conceptually, I think we can agree on a very fundamental level that when you drag a stylus, which converts physical variations in the groove (not the LP) into electrical energy across an LP, the relationship between the stylus and the LP should change only as a result of the information that is stored in the groove. All other variables should remain constant. The speed should remain constant. The LP should remain as stationary as possible, with respect to the stylus. The spindle fixes the LP in the horizontal direction. Center clamping helps maintain speed by helping combat stylus drag to a certain degree. Center and ring clamping both help fix the LP in the vertical direction, so that the stylus moves only due to the variations in the groove where the information is stored and not due to variations in the shape of the LP in the vertical direction. How different kinds of "clamping" interact with platters, mats, bearings, and LPs at a micro-scale is beyond my ability to conceptualize. Doug's comments make sense, but I think this is one of those things that is highly system dependent. Kinda like cables. There are some basic fundamental principles that govern on a macro scale, but after that, if you think it's important, ya gotta listen.