Pro-Ject - Cork-it High Quality Turntable Mat

A 300mm cork mat, 1.5mm thick. Cork does not hold a static charge, does not shed fibres onto the record, and couples to vinyl far better than felt does.

The felt mat supplied with most turntables is there because it is cheap and because it lets you slip-cue. Neither of those is a sonic argument. Felt is an excellent generator of static — peel a record off one and listen to it crackle — it sheds fibres onto the surface you just cleaned, and it is compressible enough that the record is effectively floating on a soft layer rather than coupled to the platter.

Cork addresses all three. It does not accumulate a meaningful static charge, so records lift off cleanly and attract less dust. It sheds nothing. And its mechanical impedance is closer to vinyl’s than felt’s is, so the record and the platter behave more like a single mass, with resonance drained into the platter and damped rather than left to ring in the disc.

Pro-Ject makes the case for this most strongly on metal platters, where there is real ringing to damp. On an acrylic platter — the X1, the Juke Box S2 — the argument is weaker, because acrylic is already a good impedance match for vinyl. It is still an improvement over felt on static and dust alone.

At 1.5mm the mat is thin enough that the change in vertical tracking angle is small, but it is not zero. If you are fussy about VTA and your tonearm has adjustable height — the X1 B and the Xtension do — it is worth re-checking arm height after fitting one. Cork it is compatible with Pro-Ject’s Clamp it record clamp.

Features

• 300mm cork mat, 1.5mm thick
• Does not generate static — records lift off cleanly and attract less dust
• Sheds nothing onto the record surface
• Damps platter resonance, particularly on metal platters
• Better record-to-platter coupling than felt
• Compatible with Pro-Ject’s Clamp it

Specifications

• Type: Cork turntable mat
• Material: Cork. Pro-Ject publishes no blend ratio, unlike the Cork & Rubber it
• Diameter: 300mm
• Thickness: 1.5mm
• Weight: Not published
• What Pro-Ject claims: A lower noise floor, better instrumental separation and detail retrieval, damped resonance particularly from metal platters, reduced static-related noise and dust attraction versus felt, and improved record-to-platter contact
• Compatibility: All turntables. Compatible with Pro-Ject’s Clamp it record clamp
• A note on VTA: At 1.5mm the change in effective platter height is small but not nil. If your tonearm has adjustable height, re-check it after fitting
• Country of manufacture: Not published for this product
• Warranty: Two years from date of purchase, extendable to three years by registering the product with Pro-Ject and subscribing to their newsletter. Pro-Ject states that warranty is administered by the local distributor and that terms can vary by region; no separate United States term is published. Coverage requires purchase from an authorised dealer — The ’In Groove is one.