Eliminate Static Cling and Improve Your Vinyl Sound

There are some easy ways to eliminate static cling from your turntable for better sound.

This is an overview of three outstanding turntable mats from Auditorium of Germany and SPEC of Japan. Aftermarket turntable mats have been around since the 1970s as an accessory vinyl lovers could add to their turntable with the goal being improved sound, updated appearance, a reduction in static, or all three.

Most turntables these days come with a stock felt mat or have a platter that is made out of a material designed to be used without a mat to eliminate static cling. Felt mats are the dominant type of mat on the majority of turntables on the market. But felt mats have one inherent large problem, and that is static. The static charge on a felt mat will hold debris and dust on the mat.  and of course, some of that dust and debris can be transferred to your clean record when you put it down on the mat. During the colder and drier times of the year, static cling gets so bad that a felt mat will stick to your record when you pull it off the platter, which makes for a huge pain to get it off without touching the surface of the record with our oily fingertips.

As a result of issues like static cling, there are all kinds of record mats on the market using a wide range of materials such as rubber, cork, leather, recycled vinyl, different kinds of fabrics and more. Some mats are even designed more as a decoration than a useful accessory.

So, if you do have a turntable with a felt mat and are experiencing static cling issues, how do you choose the best one? It’s actually a bit more complicated than you might think.

Turntable mats can have a pretty decent impact on the sound, but it may be they just change it for the worse and don’t really make it better. 

There are a few things to consider. If your turntable came with an integrated tonearm, it is likely the engineers designed the turntable using the stock mat when they were doing their listening tests. So, there is an argument that you do not want to make a major change in materials for your new mat. 

A more important consideration is the height of the turntable mat in comparison to the stock mat. As a general rule, you want your tonearm to be parallel to the record surface. Many turntables do not give you the ability to raise or lower the height of the tonearm. This means that if you switch out your mat for one that is a lot thicker, you are going to cause the back of the tonearm to be too low. If your tonearm can be adjusted in height, that is great… but if it cannot, you need to think about that before buying a mat that is significantly thicker than your stock mat.

Since the main culprit of static cling is a felt mat, we decided to look at several felt mats on various turntables and find their average thickness. Most of the flimsy ones, which are the type prone to static build up, average 1.5mm thick. 

Finally, there is the weight of the aftermarket mat. For most turntables, this will not be a big consideration as for a good number of turntables, the platter does not sit on any kind of special suspension system. But if your turntable does have a spring suspension system, getting a mat that is far too heavy (or a clamp for that matter) can change the resonance point of your turntable. Now, bear in mind records themselves vary in weight from around 100 grams to 230, so fairly lightweight mats are ok, but some aftermarket mats weigh several hundred, or even greater than 1000 grams, which can affect the suspension system of your turntable. 

With these important considerations in mind, we set out to find some great performing mats that should work well for most turntables while improving the sound and eliminating all the annoying static cling issues.

Auditorium 23 Turntable Mat

The first, and least expensive, is the Auditorium 23 Turntable Mat. Auditorium 23 is a German company that has been around for quite a long time. Their main business is very expensive speakers, mostly using a horn-type design. They also make phono step up transformers and cables. 

This mat is definitely two-sided. The top side has an ever so slightly raised cross-hatch pattern on it. If you look closely, you can see each of the cross hatches has a woven pattern in it and the area around them has a different woven pattern. The back of the mat is flat with the same type of woven pattern you see in between the cross-hatch pattern on the top. This mat flops around a little bit less than a typical felt mat, but obviously, with its unique construction, is not just a standard felt mat. It does not feel as soft as a felt mat and almost feels like there is a tiny bit of stiffness woven in. But since it is similar in material to a felt mat, it should be a perfect upgrade over your stock felt mat to eliminate static cling.

We had zero cases of this mat sticking to a record from static cling, which is great. It might tend to grab some of the dust that is on your record, but for some reason, those tiny specs will stay on the mat and not transfer to another record, at least in our observations. We were able to brush these off with an inexpensive carbon fiber brush or the type of brush you might clean a pool table with. It was far easier to brush off than a regular felt mat. 

With the Auditorium 23 mat having almost identical physical characteristics to a stock felt mat and the elimination of static cling and dust transfer, that alone makes it worth the price of admission for most turntables. But as an added bonus, to our ears, it also improved the audio. We heard an improvement in dynamics and a bit more separation between instruments and some turntables but on others, the difference jumped out even more Even if we had heard no change, if you have static problems and don’t want to be concerned about changing the character of the design of your turntable, this mat is an outstanding choice!

Auditorium 23 Hommage Mat

The best mat from Auditorium 23 is called their Hommage Turntable Mat. This one is made quite differently from the basic model. Again, there is no information available about its construction but to the eye, it appears to be made of three layers of material. There is what feels like a textured wool on the top and bottom with something that is probably stiff in the center. What that is, we do not know, but this mat does not flop around like a felt mat and is a little stiff although it still easily bends.

The audio improvements we heard with the smaller version jumped out even more to us with this mat. Dynamics really came to life and the texture of voices improved quite a bit. It also felt like to us we were hearing less surface noise, although we can not explain why.

Obviously, a mat in this price range is not going to find a home on $400-$600 turntables, but if you have a higher-end table with a felt type mat it's a great choice to get rid of static issues and improve your sound at the same time.

SPEC Analog Disc Sheet AP-UDI Turntable Mat

The SPEC mat was the most expensive of the bunch, but that price gets you some pretty big audio improvements. This mat is very stiff yet quite thin like a stock felt mat. It is made of aluminum and then coated with a special material the people at SPEC claim is very similar to the material used on the master stamper of a record. It actually feels ever so slightly soft to the touch and is in a matte finish. You will want to be careful and just brush it off as any cleaner with alcohol in it will damage the resin in the outer finish.

With the SPEC mat, we did not hear any reduction in surface noise but boy did the dynamics improve. It felt like this was taking us closer to a live performance as you could hear subtle volume changes easier in instruments and voices giving you more of that you are there feeling.

We see the SPEC mat being used on more expensive turntables that came with a felt mat for users who are looking to take their sound to a new level. Or if you have a turntable that is designed to not be used with a mat, this one will probably offer an improvement over the stock platter.

Overall Recommendation

We were really happy to find these three mats and be able to deliver them to all of our vinyl lovers out there. For most people, the basic Auditorium 23 mat will be the best choice, but if you have a nice turntable rig, you should consider the better ones. And the best part about all of them is no more static cling!