Garrard 401 wow

[337alant]

Received my 401 and it was in excellent condition.
Lubricated everything except the motor which is very quiet.
Got hold of a great looking plinth from Mike Greenwood (Cheers Mike)
so I could get it up and running quick.
Put my OL250 arm and Denon DL160 cart on it just bolting it down to an adapter plate and the sound was good very good indeed so I switched back to my LP12 and to be fair the Linn never put a foot wrong clean Vibrant and very musical, the 401 had a bit more bass grunt but didn’t sound as open.
I remembered that people say don’t bolt the regas up tight so I slackened the arm bolt off and noticed an immediate improvement in the dynamics, the only problem is a slack arm is not very user friendly so I tried blue tack to fix it down, that gave a kind of damped sound which lost transparency again.
So next I tried putting bolting the arm to the arm board again and set the arm board on 4 ball bearings them just put a couple of screws through into the platter, result WOW real dynamics and clarity with awesome welly in the bass, now it blew the LP12 clean away

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh290/337alant/garrard401.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh290/337alant/garrard401b.jpg

As an added bonus I also pulled out a 30 year old Lentek MC head amp stuck a new 9V battery in it and that was a significant improvement over the MC section in my Cambridge 640P
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh290/337alant/lentek.jpg

Alan

 

[gortnipper]

I tried putting bolting the arm to the arm board again and set the arm board on 4 ball bearings them just put a couple of screws through into the platter, result WOW real dynamics and clarity with awesome welly in the bass

I fairly saw the same thing when using Rollerblock Jr footers instead of Mitchells, wood feet, or cheap doorstops.

 

[GWM]

Also try using the minimum torque you can to bolt the 401 down, just enough to hold it in place, this was an obvious improvement for me.
Open out the wire loom to the motor, mine was very stiff, this shorts out the motor suspension again obvious improvement.

Geoff

 

[JimKempton]

Geoff

Do you fix the wires anywhere, or just let them hang?

JK

 

[337alant]

Geoff
I will try slackening off the bolts as I did nip them up onto new rubbers but still making sure there was a gap between the 401 and the plinth thanks
I found out the same thing about the wiring loom as initially I tie wrapped the whole thing into one nice neat loom, but got a hum and increased vinyl roar, I looked in the manual and it said that this could be caused by stiff wiring to the motor so started snipping the tie wraps off and hey presto it worked.

Any ideas on the best way to dress the Arm lead and mains lead?????
Alan

 

[GWM]

JK.
From memory there is a plastic box atached to the motor and all the wires go in there and are tied together, I think I seperated them out so only the wires to the motor go to it and cut all the ties.The wires hang loose and the motor can freely bounce up and down.If you look at the underside it will all become clear, it allows the motor susspension to work as intended.
Alan.
I would dump the rubber washers if you are using them under the deck,just loosly bolt down straight to the plinth.
The mains lead is secured by a plastic clip to the underside of my plinth,I run a VPI tone arm which has a junction box so I have a lead with phonos at both ends. My 401 is on a wall shelf with ball bearing isolators.
I do have some rubber washers under the arm board,this did improve the top end a bit.
Geoff
These are all easily reversable so suck it and see.

 

[JimKempton]

Geoff

Got to be worth a try.

Thanks for that.

JK

 

[packtech]

so I tried blue tack to fix it down, that gave a kind of damped sound which lost transparency again.
So next I tried putting bolting the arm to the arm board again and set the arm board on 4 ball bearings them just put a couple of screws through into the platter, result WOW real dynamics and clarity with awesome welly in the bass, now it blew the LP12 clean away


Alan

I remember seeing a similar thing to this some weeks ago with a Michell Gyro on another Forum and bolting a Rega with bluetak on the screw threads and not very tight and this brought on an improvement too..apparently.. not tried it myself as I can't be arsed to clean the cobwebs off the dam thing..