The Rega Planar 3 is an award-winning turntable that has garnered rave reviews ever since its debut and is highly rated by turntable enthusiasts. This is an elegantly designed turntable and will look absolutely fine in any listening room. Impressing your guests whenever they lay their eyes on the Planar 3 turntable. It has high sound quality and exceptional sonic performance as well.
If you want to improve the sound quality of your Rega turntable, you might want to use a turntable mat. There are quite a number of Rega Planar 3 owners who use a turntable mat and have enjoyed the positive outcomes deriving from it. At first glance, the turntable mat doesn’t look impressive and you can’t really tell how it will improve the sound quality just by looking at it. By learning more about the turntable mat, we can then understand how it works and more importantly how it will help us in improving our vinyl music listening experience. We will be preparing a list of the best mats to go for and to use with your Rega Planar 3 turntable.
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What’s a Turntable Mat?
A turntable mat is a disc-shaped material that you will place on top of your turntable’s platter. It is usually thin and comes in various types of turntable mats made of different materials. There are the felt turntable mat, leather turntable mat, cork turntable mat, and rubber turntable mat. Hybrid turntable mats made of cork and rubber materials are also a top choice these days and will be ideal for the Rega Planar 3 too. Each type of turntable mat has its own properties and will improve the turntable users’ listening experience in its own unique way.
You must be wondering how in the world does a product like this going to improve your vinyl record music listening experience. It is after all a straightforward and simple process as you just need to place the turntable mat on top of your Rega Planar 3 platter and let the magic happen. Sadly, there is no magic involved, the turntable mat simply holds the record firmly in place and dampens resonances. Ultimately reducing vibrations coming from the Planar 3 platter due to the platter interaction with the turntable surface or other parts of the turntable itself. By minimizing the vibrations and dampening the resonances, thus reducing any noise/distortion, improving the sound quality and your music listening experience.
This is a simple and effective upgrade without the need to spend too much. We will suggest you set aside a comfortable budget with a little headroom. How high your budget will determine how many turntable mats you can go for, for instance, if you have a low budget, you probably might want to go with felt/rubber turntable mats since they are usually the more affordable options. We have prepared the list of the best turntable mats which you can use with your Rega Planar 3 and will be sharing it with you now. Once you have set your budget, please take a look below for the turntable mats list.
Best Turntable Mats for Rega Planar 3
The Turntable Lab Cork and Rubber Record Mat will be one of the best turntable mats for your Rega Planar 3. It is designed to improve the sound quality and performance of your turntable by lessening vibrations. The Turntable Lab Cork and Rubber Record Mat are made of compressed cork and rubber giving you the qualities of both materials such as more grip and dampening resonance properties. They are very modestly priced as well and if you don’t like their logo showing, you can always switch the turntable mat to the other side which does not have the Turntable Lab logo on it.
More Details at Amazon – Turntable Lab Cork and Rubber Record Mat
The Mat is a premium turntable mat designed by the renowned Boston Audio Design and SAKURA SYSTEMS. It is certainly a worthy match for your Rega Planar 3. Using their years of experience in making award-winning carbon graphite turntable mats, they are able to create “The Mat” which incorporates different carbon graphite material and imbues it with the same performance as their Mat 2 but with lesser thickness. The Mat cleans up the overall sound reproduction, providing a clearer and focused soundstage. We will recommend checking them out and see if “The Mat” is the turntable mat you are looking for.
If you prefer using felt material then the Pro-Ject Felt Platter Mat will be an ideal choice for you and your Rega Planar 3 turntable. This is an affordably priced turntable mat and will fit most listeners’ budgets. There are some Rega turntable users who mentioned that the felt platter mats are more suitable for Rega decks and you might want to seriously consider getting one. You might want to make your final decision after auditioning for the Pro-Ject Felt Platter Mat and see if you like what you are hearing. At this price point, it is really difficult for us to nitpick the Pro-Ject Felt Platter Mat.
More Details at Amazon – Pro-Ject Felt Mat
The Rega Felt Platter Mat is one of the best turntable mats to choose from and use on your Rega Planar 3. This is a turntable mat that is specially made as a direct replacement for Planar 3 and other Rega’s turntables, so we can be assured of its compatibility and sonic improvements. Furthermore, there are various colors to choose from, allowing us to pick the best color option either for the Rega Planar 3 or your listening room, or both. The Rega Felt Platter Mat has a very modest price tag and is made from 100% wool. For a felt turntable mat at this price point, it is worth your time to take a look.
Thorens Platter Mat Cork & Rubber is another amazing hybrid turntable mat that will be an excellent choice for the Rega Planar 3 turntable. This is a non-static turntable mat and is made to provide you with the best of both worlds, giving you a better grip of your records while playing and dampening the resonances thus improving the sound quality. The Thorens Platter Mat Cork & Rubber also helps to improve the midrange reproduction and slightly increases the bass output. It also helps to reduce static electricity on your records. This platter mat has a modest price tag as well.
More Details at Amazon – Thorens Platter Mat
The Boston Audio Design Mat 1 will be one of the best turntable mats to match with the Rega Planar 3. It is machined from pure carbon and is made to be a direct replacement for turntable mats. One of the main focuses of the Boston Audio Design Mat 1 is to improve the sound quality by uncovering more music details and nuances. Giving the turntable users a purer audio signal and making the music sound slightly more pronounced. There is also an increase in clarity which provided us with a higher resolution music presentation and gave us a renewed music listening experience of our records.
The Grungebuster Turntable Mat will be another premium platter mat for your Rega Planar 3. The main task of the Grungebuster Turntable Mat is to improve the sound quality by tapping on its various sonic properties such as high responsiveness, speed and providing its users with natural-sounding music delivery from analog musical sources. It effortlessly reduces the vibrations and resonance as well as static. The Grungebuster Turntable Mat can be used with or without a record clamp which is neat. You might want to check them out first before making your final decision.
This award-winning Origin Live Upgrade Platter Mat will be an exemplary choice and has a modest price tag. It has gained plenty of accolades over the years and is highly rated by audiophiles including discerning critics. The Origin Live Upgrade Platter Mat will match well with the Rega Planar 3 turntable, it improves the overall clarity and provides you with a more articulate bass performance. The slight sonic improvement can be heard throughout the frequency range which is really impressive and make the Origin Live Upgrade Platter Mat worth every penny invested.
To Sum It Up
These turntable mats are some of the finest on the market and will be worth your while to at least take a look. You might want to pick 1 or 2 or if you have the time, check them all out physically and do an audition with them. See which one of the turntable mats sounds the best to you. You can also shortlist the turntable mats by budget or type/material. Feel free to use this list as a reference while comparing it with other brands of platter mats not shown here.
