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Talk to me about Garrards

M

matt j

pfm Member
When the move is done and things have settled down - possibly next year - I think I'd like to try a 301 as I've still not owned an idler. Possibly with a Decca but that isn't set in stone.

I think I'd like to make my own plinth for it, what is considered the best DIY plinth approach? I know some go for exotic materials like Panzerholtz etc. but for ease of DIY machining/tooling I think I'd rather keep it simpler than that.

Arm wise I'd be tempted to pick up another Hadcock given how much I like them and my ambivalence towards more popular choices like Regas and SMEs etc. Are any of the Decca arms worth a look?

This is of course all reliant on us not being in a post nuclear apocalypse, hunting squirrels with a home made bow and living in a tent.
 
I've got slate and Panzer 401 plinths, and birch ply is still my choice. I'd avoid MDF.
Hadcock and Decca a great match, but my own caveat with the Decca (SG here) is it needs to be on a 2nd arm. When its good, nothing is better, but it can be fussy with vinyl without any reason.
 
divedeepdog said:
I've got slate and Panzer 401 plinths, and birch ply is still my choice. I'd avoid MDF.
Hadcock and Decca a great match, but my own caveat with the Decca (SG here) is it needs to be on a 2nd arm. When its good, nothing is better, but it can be fussy with vinyl without any reason.
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Well I have my other DIY deck which I'd be keeping as it owes me next to nothing, the 301 would be an indulgence more than anything so not too worried about it only wearing the Decca. Are the Decca arms any good? They seem to be more abundant than Hadcocks that's for sure.
 
I’ve got one at home, looks so flimsy and basic never tried it. Probably needs a rewire? Ffss too somewhere…
 
Not a 301 but I've had a 401 for 20+ years.
I used it initially in a cheap ply plinth with a Rega RB300. It was OK but nothing special and not as good to listen to as my Roksan Xerxes.
For 20 years has been fitted to a 50mm laminated MDF base with a de-coupled 25mm Acrylic sub plinth on top.
When I designed it I was trying to combine the 1960's Garrard design with the Airtangent and also complement my other equipment and the aesthetics of my listening room. At the time, the relative merits of ply, slate or other materials were not known to me and MDF + Acrylic was easy for me to work and finish.
I have never been able to compare my set up directly to any other Garrard combination but this works for me and I have had many thousand hours of enjoyment from it.

The arm is an Airtangent Parallel tracker and the lift-off lid is made from one piece of Acrylic sheet, hot folded with flame polished edges.

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FWIW after playing around quite a lot my choice of Garrard plinth would be based on the Lorricraft design with a hefty ply top-plate decoupled from a nice solid wood plinth with squash balls or similar compliant material. It looks good, provides great isolation and to my ears sounds more lively and dynamic than high-mass alternatives. The Garrard itself should be mounted to the top-plate with its original fibre washers and just attached barely finger-tight. As ever this tension can be heard and there is an optimal point where the deck sounds really big, solid, lively and dynamic.

As with most things in audio I came to the conclusion that I just do not like the sound of high mass, though the top plate does need to be pretty thick not to warp given the huge hole cut in the middle. 3/4” is likely about right here, maybe half inch if really high quality ply and not cut too tight front and back. I’d also keep the bottom of the real wood ‘frame’ open as they are fairly hot running motors and boxing them in the way some high-mass plinths do is a very bad idea IMHO (as it is with 124s, Lencos etc). These big high-torque motors need some space to breathe.

PS Add a Decca and Hadcock and that La Scala system will have dynamics and speed most systems can’t even dream of!
 
Tony L said:
The Garrard itself should be mounted to the top-plate with its original fibre washers and just attached barely finger-tight. As ever this tension can be heard and there is an optimal point where the deck sounds really big, solid, lively and dynamic.
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Yes, getting the tightness of the mount nuts just right (i.e. just about finger tight) is really critical in my experience with a 401 and a Loricraft plinth with ply top board. Running with an Aro, Nigel made up a stainless armboard/base and I found a similar thing here too - secure but not overly tightened.
 
I live in the same town where Garrards were made and it's hard to believe that they once employed 4000 people. I knew a lot of the engineers who worked there, sadly most of them have since died, but to a man they all recommended the 401 over the 301. According to the engineers that I knew, the 401 was more robust and should last longer. Some of the engineers reckoned that the 401 was more attuned to stereo but other engineers refuted this. However the 301 is the better financial investment and both models sound good.

I bought my 401 for the princely sum of £40.00 and it was mounted in some tatty old plinth with an equally rubbish type arm. It did not sound good.

I got in touch with Terry O'Sullivan of Loricraft through various contacts (no google back then) and to cut a long story short he and Nigel gave me an ash Loricraft plinth with a RB300 arm and this made a massive difference to the sound. A year or two later I got them to fit a Naim Aro and a PSU80 and this really brought the music to life.

The only problem was the squash balls, they would go hard and distort over time and the platter would go off level. A friend recommend that I fit some 40mm diameter sorbothane balls that were solid and should not distort.

This did not affect the sound at all but even after a couple of years the platter is still perfectly level and hopefully will remain so. The supplier was a company called Peakhifi.

Once you buy one of these turntables I cannot see you ever buying anything else.
 
The Squash balls do gradually distort (it's worth having another set so you can swap round every few months) but I prefer them to the Peak Hifi Sorbothane spheres, which just didn't sound quite as good to me, although they did mean that the top plate wouldn't sag, which was nice. I've been meaning to try different types of squash ball to see whether that makes any difference either to sound or to the long-term sagging.
 
There were known hum problems using a Decca pickup on the 301, it was one of the reasons for the revised motor design on the 401.

Not insuperable though.
 
401 in a Panzerholz skeleton plinth bolted down, with a 3012, and it sounds on par with a TD 124 (12" modified Thorens arm) and a PTP 1.5 Lenco with a 12" Jelco arm. Never had a 301 and not likely to have one.
 
I've been using a 301 in a panzer/bamboo high mass plinth by russ collinson, FR64s/b60 and decca C4e for years now. Pretty happy with it.

Haven't tried other plinth types (e.g. skeletal) so can't comment on the differences there.

Hopefully, will get another 301 up and running in the near future with a 12" arm and decca cart and use this as my stereo rig and the existing one as a mono rig.
 
stevec67 said:
I've looked them up and they have disappeared from the hosting. I'll have to take some more photos.
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Don't break your balls Steve. I've just been considering a 401 and I see so many massive freaking ugly plinths that I wouldn't give houseroom to. Was just wondering want yours looked like.
 
401 on a birch plywood plinth here, kinda medium mass in weight. All bolted hand tight includind feet. 4mm thick rubber washer inbetween underside of plinth and feet with 1.5mm thick rubber disc under the feet (glued). Sounds great tho can't compare to other plinth constructions...

I'd also add that the 4mm rubber washer gives the tt/plinth superb isolation...i've quite firmly slammed the sliding doors of my sideboard and stomped feet on floor whilst playing a record without any problem of a record skipping.
 
Darren said:
Don't break your balls Steve. I've just been considering a 401 and I see so many massive freaking ugly plinths that I wouldn't give houseroom to. Was just wondering want yours looked like.
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No ball breaking required, I'll host it soon. In fact pm me your actual email and I'll mail some quick and dirty photos now. It's a skeletal design, you may like it or not. I do, but I designed and built it, so I ought to.
 
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