Speed Freaks
Now that we had all of the preliminary maintenance and setup items crossed off the to-do list, it was time to find out if the Garrard would actually play a record. Back it was to the manual to ensure we did everything properly. The Description section has a few interesting comments that bear repeating:

"The Garrard Model 301 Transcription Motor is the culmination of over 40 years experience in the design and manufacture of high quality gramophone equipment and this motor has been designed to provide the professional user and quality enthusiast with a unit supreme in its class.

The Model 301 Transcription Motor has three controls, the speed range knob on the right-hand side, the speed-adjusting control in the centre, and the on-off knob on the left-hand side.

It has extremely low wow and flutter content, rumble being almost non-existent. Each of the three speeds is adjustable by means of a knob, which operates a specially designed eddy-current brake to enable the precise speed to be obtained.

Great attention has been given to details appreciated by the connoisseur, such as a suppressor unit to avoid switch clicks, a heavy turntable diecast in aluminum and accurately balanced, a robust hardened and super-finished turntable spindle, a fully retracting intermediate wheel and a brake to reduce the free revolutions of the turntable on switching off."

Bottom line? The Model 301 is built like a finely crafted tank. If you get one in good condition, it will likely live longer than you and it may very well already be older than you are. I notice that when I read turntable reviews, it's rare to find that the motors run at the correct speed. With a Garrard transcription table and a bit of tweaking, that's never a factor. You can always dial in the exact speed each time you fire it up by using the speed control mounted on the top plate. If you find one with the strobe markings built into the platter, ascertain whether it's a 50 or 60Hz unit. All you need is a light source and you can literally dial in perfect speed at 33.3, 45 or 78 with the turn of a knob. Since the platter markings are often for the 50Hz market and many tables are found to run about 2% or more on the fast side of accuracy, the tweaking bit involves a good machine shop. They can turn the pulley for about $30 to reduce its diameter. This most often requires shaving off just a few thousandths of an inch. The speed control will do the rest. According to Jonathan, the table sounds best calibrated with its speed control somewhere near the middle position. Another useful blurb from the manual:


"Start the motor, turn the speed adjusting knob until the ring of lines applying to that speed for which you are setting appear to remain stationary when illuminated under an appropriate AC light source. For highly accurate transcription work where the slightest speed deviation is critical, it is desirable to let the motor run for approximately 10 minutes so that it may reach its normal working temperature. For such critical work, speed should be rechecked on changing the speed range.".

We let the motor warm up for 10 minutes before dialing in the speed at 33.3. Then we dropped down a record and lowered the needle. We were all floored. The unimposing-looking Garrard 301 in its scabby old plinth and with our makeshift outboard arm mount, budget Origin Live-modded Rega tonearm with VTAF and the Denon 103 cartridge sounded stunning. Friends Pete, Bill (revered blind master piano restorer), Stephæn and I enjoyed spinning records for the rest of the afternoon. We were mesmerized and astonished at what the old Garrard could do.

I reported our early success to Jules Coleman who replied back:

"Good for you; but honest to God, this is just the beginning. The Denon isn't broken in yet but it has great tone despite being a little rolled off on top. Down the road when you try the Shindo plinth and its matching arm, you won't be floored as much as shocked. And we're talking about a table whose design is 40+ years old."
It's really amazing when you think about it. How can one of these old Garrards sound so terrific? Our makeshift Garrard cobbled together for one Saturday afternoon listening session sounded amazing. I have no doubt at this point that a fully tricked-out Shindo/Garrard would be a complete sensory shock just as Jules describes. After thanking Pete for his more than generous assistance in getting the old table up and running, I left it with him for the week so he could get some listening impressions in comparison to his beautiful Thorens. Pete followed up with a couple of e-mails during the week as his impressions began to form:


"When it is all decked out, it will be a grand machine. I have not ever before heard sound like the Garrard makes. No wonder it has legendary status."

More:

"Been listening more to the 301 & 103: Wow! Best sound I've ever had in my room. Probably the best I've ever heard. Vinyl is king! The 301 is Queen. The 103 is Prince. I ordered two Denon 103 cartridges, one for Bill and one for me. The level of inner detail and nuance is enormous as is the soundstage. I'll play the turntable and tonearm combination until the weekend, then you will want to try it for a while. The Garrard is clearly better than the stock Thorens. When I thump the platter of the Garrard with my finger, it goes 'thunk' and sounds very dead. When I thump the top platter/mat of the Thorens, it resonates. When I thump the cast iron inner platter of the Thorens, it rings like a bell – this is mighty interesting."

Another:

"I installed the vertical guide for the adjuster on the Garrard so now the tone arm and adjuster are very easy to use. I listened to the Garrard some more and the Thorens as well. The Garrard is clearly in a separate league. Amazingly, with the Garrard playing a record, the listener can sit in the center of the large sofa on the right side of the listening room and get an absolutely acceptable image. One can lie down on that sofa, relax and hear a lovely lucid image. With the Thorens this is not so . . . at the center of the sofa you hear mostly right channel. And the image with the Garrard is so lucid. This is just mind-boggling."
To say the least, we were all pretty stoked about the performance of the combination of the old Garrard 301, the Origin Live-modified Rega tonearm with VTAF and the Denon 103 cartridge before doing anything yet about that scabby old plinth it came with. To get started on a budget, you could not go wrong with a simple stacked Birch-ply plinth made by using the template in the Garrard manual, an entry-level Origin Live tonearm and the Denon 103 cartridge. Figure $900 or less for the Garrard 301, $570 for the Origin Live/Rega RB250 and $99 for the VTAF. Pete found discounted Denon 103s for $149 on the web. Figure roughly $100 for a Birch-ply plinth if you build one yourself - that's $1918 for a stunning Garrard 301 record player. I think many hobbyists in fact would be tempted to stop right there, so exceptional is the result. It shouldn't come as a surprise that my audio pals Pete and Bill are searching eBay right now for their own 301s.

A Word about Plinths
The choice of plinth design and materials is critical to the ultimate performance potential of Garrard 301. A little history and learned lessons from other hot-hoovin' Garrarderos might come in handy, particularly if you want to fabricate your own plinth. As part of this series of articles on the 301, I intend to provide free plans on how to build your own killer plinth on the cheap if you are so inclined.


Back in the olden days, the usual way to mount Garrard 301s was right into the top of a stereo console or counter top. In the last 50 years, people have learned a lot about making high-performance plinths for Garrard 301s. I'll share the results of the fruit of their labors with you, from the worst to best sounding.


Reputedly, the worst sounding plinths for Garrards are layered MDF with heavy damping. What works well for other tables -- damping with lead shot for example -- spells death for Garrards. It is said that damping of any kind undermines the performance of Garrards by sucking the life out of them to produce a boring and lifeless sound. The Japanese actually have a theory regarding Garrard 301s. It says that one should consider the modulations that occur at the interface of record and needle as miniature "explosions". Everything possible should be done to preserve the transmission of that explosive event all the way through the table. You definitely don't want to do anything in the plinth that could damp those "explosions". Simply put, damping Garrards is a curse that guarantees bad sound. Of course to kill vibration with damping sounds very logical but with Garrards, it's sonic suicide. So avoid MDF and any kind of damping like the plague. What works on belt-driven turntables doesn't work on idler-wheel-driven turntables like the Garrard at all.


The second-worst plinth style is said to be the box plinth. The plywood box that my Garrard came with is certainly the worst of the worst in box plinths. A sturdy Birch-ply box designed according to the template in the Garrard manual would certainly be much better, with hardwoods being better yet. Having said that, the mighty Garrard with even this style of plinth can sound extremely good but connoisseurs claim that you'll only enjoy about 50% of what a Garrard 301 is capable of with the best of plinths.


The Birch-ply stack plinth is considered to be a very good sounding base for the Garrard 301. In this style of plinth, layers of Birch ply are glued together with cutouts in each layer that are just big enough for the motor assembly to fit into. For the last 30 years, this has been the most common design used in Japan and the rest of the world to get contemporary good sound from a Garrard 301. There are some pretty straightforward ways of doing this cheaply to get about 80% of what the Garrard is said to be ultimately capable of.


The solid layered Cherry Shindo plinth is considered to be the ultimate sonic treat. It is said that the opening in the plinth fits around the Garrard motor assembly like a glove. While quizzing Jonathan about the Shindo plinth size, he told me that the Shindo plinth is actually not too large. "It comfortably fits the 301 with a 12" arm. The overall size of the Shindo plinth is 550 × 280 × 440 mm WxHxD and it weighs 26.5 kg." It sits on a base that measures 550 × 140 × 440 mm WxHxD. Ken Shindo has spent about 30 years perfecting his plinth design and materials choices. Trial and error and lots of saw dust later, the Shindo plinth is reportedly the best one on Earth. Two people who've heard it told me that "it will simply blow your mind". The Shindo Cherry plinth with a machined steel arm board cut for a Shindo or Ortofon 12" arm retails for $3800.

This came in as late-breaking news: My article on an everyman's approach to a Garrard 301 got Jonathan Halpern to thinking about how he could help getting into the classy Shindo rig more affordably. He is looking into offering a US-made Birch-ply stack plinth similar in concept to the Shindo plinth. This would allow people to get up and running without worrying about designing and building a plinth or finding a suitable carpenter to build it for them. Jonathan told me that his goal is to come up with a finished plinth that sounds really good and comes in at a retail of <$1000. When Jonathan gets a little further along, I'll tell you about the results.


Terry Cain of Cain & Cain Loudspeaker Fame to the Rescue
Unless you have the skills to build a plinth yourself -- I certainly don't -- you're going to have to find someone with woodworking skills to build one for you. While I was puzzling over this challenge, I thought of friend and loudspeaker designer extraordinaire Terry Cain of Cain & Cain Audio fame in nearby Walla Walla/Washington. I called up Terry and told him about my Garrard 301 project and what I had in mind for a Birch-ply stack plinth. The ever creative and stylish Terry did me one better and suggested the use of hardwoods. "You wouldn't use Birch-ply in one of your guitars, now would ya? So why the heck use it in your plinth?" he queried. "Besides, hardwoods will be much more beautiful."


So here's the plan: Pete, Terry and I are going to use the stack plinth concept by utilizing hardwoods instead of Birch-ply as our attempt at the ultimate affordable Garrard 301 plinth while keeping the Shindo plinth in our cross hairs. This plinth project will be the subject of my next article. The intent is to make the plans available for free should you want to duplicate our process. Wowza, I'm pumped. Stay tuned!


Postscript
I'd like to express my appreciation to Jules Coleman for his encouragement about this project and loaning me his classic Denon 103 cartridge to get started. I'd like to thank Jonathan Halpern, a true Garrard 301 expert and all-around analog maven, for answering my continuous stream of questions about Garrard 301s and for his generosity in loaning me his classic SME 3012 tonearm for use in this series of articles. I'd like to thank Pete Riggle for his friendship, endless enthusiasm and indispensable technical insights to help me getting my old Garrard 301 up and running by using his Origin Live-modified Rega RB250 arm and VTAF. I'd like to thank my good friend Stephæn Harrell for donating his superb cartridge setup skills in getting the Denon 103 cartridge adjusted to perfection. I'd like to thank the unparalleled Terry Cain for being willing to make an artful super plinth at a price this audio everyman can afford. I'd like to thank Bill Van Winkle, Pete Riggle, Stephaen Harrell and Terry Cain for lending their keen ears to provide group listening impressions for my upcoming articles. Need I add that there's much more to come? This will include ongoing listening impressions from our crack team of audio observers...