Check out the new Artisan Fidelity Garrard 301 Statement

Woke up at 4:45am this morning for some reason. Guess I felt a disturbance in The Force.

Checked my email to find photos of the new turntable I had Artisan Fidelity build had literally just been sent to my Inbox. Been dying of anticipation, so needless to say I'm probably not falling back asleep.

Can't wait to see it in person!

 

Bocote has such a fantastic figure and colour contrast. Very nice.

 

It's actually a wood called Kingswood. Here's what the raw wood looked like. I thought the table was going to be a lot more gold than it turned out, like inverting the ratio of gold to brown in the finished table. Oh well. Still looks fantastic.

 

Gorgeous!!

 

Brian

Looks great -- glad to hear of progress in this, I have had an order in with them for 12 weeks now and am yet to hear of any progress....guess they are busy. Keep us posted on what happens from here.
Enjoy.

Patrick

 

Lucky you

 

Gorgeous. Is it the same model listed on AudioGon? https://app.audiogon.com/listings/t...n-fidelity-2016-01-01-analog-46324-hammond-in

The guy is just up the road from me.

 

Yeah, I guess so. Awesome... more pics I didn't have.

 

Hot damn, it's perfect

 

Very beautiful turntable. I wonder how it sounds.

 

You are going to have to make room for that, it is big! Ikeda arm, and what other- ? You kept your Blue lace, what other cart are you setting up?
I assume you selected copper over another metal for the platter- what was the consideration?
It looks killer Brian, but the real test will be-- how it looks in your room!
Congrats. You'll get it this coming week, right? Pretty, no very, exciting, look forward to a report and more pics, in situ!

 

Me too!

 

The other arm is a Schroeder CB-1. Second arm will likely have the 0.7 Miyajima Zero mono cartridge.

That said, the Ikeda arm comes with a second headshell. I may use that for the Zero and then put a second stereo cart on the Schroeder CB-1. Thinking of picking up a used Air Tight PC-1 Supreme or an EMT JSD6 Gold. I know the EMT will mate incredibly well with my SUT (it's pretty much designed for EMT carts). Not sure on the Air Tight since it has an incredibly low output.

You have the PC-1 Supreme, right?

You know if my A23 Hommage SUT will be a good match for it?

 

Dunno enough about the A23, the impedance on the Airtight is very low I have mine loaded at around 80 ohms or so (with variable loading, I can compare the settings and that was the sweet spot, sonically and mathematically). You might talk with Syntax and David Karmeli, who both have large collections of new and vintage cartridges. There was one retro cartridge in the back of my mind, something that folks like to use the FR and Ikeda for, but I'm not remembering right now. The buzz is all about that recreation of the old Neumann cartridge, but I'm not adventurous enough to buy something that is that "out there." There's some who like the Ortofon (Anna? A 95?), and the newest model is actually cheaper than the predecessors. That's the one thing that sucks about high-end cartridges- so costly to experiment.

 

That's why I like to buy used. The Ikeda and CB-1 were actually demo units, so saved quite a bit there.

 

That looks great Brian!

 

Too shiny

Is that top sandwich piece made of copper? If it is then what is the benefit of it being copper?

 

It is copper. From their website:

By employing a modular platter architecture, the user may contour the playback characteristics of the Garrard 301 Statement to a degree as each upper material selection will allow for a slightly different presentation. Material selections available: Copper alloy, Magnesium, 7075 Aluminum, Inox Stainless Steel. Please consult me directly for an explanation of unique playback differences between the various alloy selections.
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It's been a long time since I ordered, so I don't remember what he felt the characteristics of this choice were, but whatever they were was why I chose to go with the copper.

 

Thanks. I could be wrong, but I believe I'm the first customer to get his newly developed "modular inverted precision bearing and platter based architecture" as well as the upgraded chassis milled from a solid block of aluminum.

There's also an external power supply regulator that I had him veneer with the same wood. Haven't seen the final pic of that yet, but here's the pre-stained wrapped piece. I also had him veneer a little accessory box to keep my various analog accessories.

 

My bet is, your turntable will become an Internet phenom, photos of it will go viral, and it will become famous!

 

Absolutely gorgeous! Congrats! Can't wait to hear of your impressions of sound.

 

Ha! I doubt that, but I must say that it may be the most beautiful table I've ever seen even if not exactly what I was after. I ended up finding a veneer example today which was EXACTLY what was in my head that you and I discussed awhile back. If I ever decide to get a second table, I'll have a better example to work toward for AF. For now I'm just really excited to see and hear it in person finally.

 

It is stunning. A real work of art.

 

Wow...just wow!

 

Wow again Brian. Congrats!