My Restored 1954 Garrard 301

I'm not old enough to remember when idler drive decks ruled the hi fi kingdom, I started hanging out in hi fi shops and reading hi fi magazines at the start of the eighties, back then, in the UK at least, the Linn orthodoxy was in full effect and belt drives were considered the pinnacle of record deck evolution, idlers were old hat and not worth mentioning whilst eccentrics could always seek out the odd high end Japanese direct drive that sneaked past the Linn guardians. Personally I never bought into the Linn cult, Pink Triangles always sounded better and I fell in love with the Roksan Xerxes as soon as I heard it and soon bought one, but for the most part the only high end decks I could get to see and hear were belt drives.

My only experience of Garrards had been low end models in old radiograms or SP 25s, nothing that led me to believe that once upon a time Garrard had made some of the best decks in the world, sometime in the late eighties we started to hear of Japanese audiophiles paying "crazy money" for Garrard 301s. I guess the Japanese buyers must have been mentioned in the UK hi fi press, but it was definitely something discussed with my fellow hi fi enthusiasts. I was already a pretty hardcore car boot buyer, these were the days when people were dumping their record collections, I started searching for one of these mythical 301s or even a 401, they existed A fellow booter I knew found three or four 401s and I remember him offering me one for £100 or £120, I wasn't interested I wanted to find one in the wild.

Time passed, as the nineties came and went I managed to rescue a Garrard 4HF from a college pa system, several stock GL-75s passed through my hands and a friend found me a Goldring G-99, meanwhile the cult of the 301 continued unabated and prices rocketed greatly helped by the growth of the internet. I feared that my chances of finding a bargain Garrard, 301 or 401 were rapidly diminishing as the twenty first century progressed.

A little over eighteen months ago my luck changed, my favourite car boot sale opens at 6 am, but on a busy day it can take more than two hours for all the sellers to arrive and set up, I'd been there for about an hour when I started on a newly arrived row and couldn't believe it when twenty five feet in front of me I saw a box placed on a table with what appeared to be a gray Garrard deck. I ran over and followed two essential rules, grabbed the box with both hands and asked how much it was, I staked my claim, this paid off as two or three other buyers came along and expressed interest, sorry, but I was not letting this go.

Back then I knew a lot less about 301s, but I did know enough to realise that this was a grease bearing 301 and probably very early, unfortunately the platter wouldn't budge and I couldn't get to see the serial number to confirm my instincts. It turned out the seller was acting on behalf of the elderly owner who had failed to confirm what price he wanted the day before, the deck had been in a garage for about fifteen years prior to which it had been used in a book shop in a local town. Although we didn't know the price I knew I wanted this 301 and asked the seller to put it back in his van making a three figure offer to confirm my intent. I kept checking back, we exchanged phone numbers, eventually he got through to the owner, he was going to check on eBay and work out what he wanted, by 9am still no price and my friend who drove was wanting to move on to another boot sale, finally a call, we had a price, I headed back and paid up, I'd probably been too keen, but the price was still one I was happy with.

The deck just after I bought it:


As I said to my friend at the time, the purchase price was just the beginning, with remarkable foresight I told him it would likely end up costing me £2-3,000 to get the deck properly restored and running.

 

When I got the deck home a gentle tap or two released the platter and it was a very low serial number, a little research confirmed it was from 1954, the first year of production, a pleasant surprise. Although I'd previously favoured the 401 I'd immediately fallen for this particular 301, it felt special to me, battle scars and all and I decided it deserved a proper restoration although I didn't have the funds to hand to do it justice.

It's taken eighteen months and I kind of did things backwards, but I think it's been more than worth the wait and the money spent.

 

Perhaps the easiest choice was cartridge, I've been wanting to buy a mono for at least a decade, I'd looked a Lyra, Denon, Ortfon etc., nearly bought a Lyra and an Ortofon, but eventually I decided to go all in and buy the best I could, the Miyajima Zero A, finding the 301 gave me the perfect platform, I ended up getting the cartridge first because I became aware of an impending price rise.

Having selected the cart I then needed to choose an appropriate arm, the Miyajima requires high mass and the traditional stylus profile would benefit from a 12" arm, I wanted to play safe and buy new, this gave me a choice of SME, Jelco, Ortofon, Schick and a few more esoteric makes, my criteria were value for money, quality, detachable headshell so I can easily swap between the Zero A and a future Zero B and something that looked right with a 301, this ruled out everything except the SME M2 12R, the Jelco and the Ortofon, what can I say, I like SMEs, it's great arm and it's British, SMEs were pretty much born to be mounted on Garrards. Once again a large price rise forced my hand and I got in before the arm increased in price by more than 30%, so I had my cart and arm, but no plinth and a deck that hadn't run in more than a decade,

 

Next came the plinth and in the UK you really are spoiled for choice with options at every price, my local fireplace shop could knock something up in slate for just over £100, I could make my own from ply, but I have no experience with veneering and I wanted to do this deck justice, there are Moldovans and Hungarians, Americans and numerous English plinth makers, there's slate, ply, solid wood, metal, solid plinths and skeleton plinths, suspension and non suspension, I've looked at numerous sites, read hundreds of posts and studied dozens of pictures over the last eighteen months.

In the end I narrowed my choice down to two, Russ Collinson's Layers Of Beauty and Martin Brenner's Vinylista, (a popular choice with forum members), their approaches are different, but they both make high quality plinths, in the end I decided to go with a Layers Of Beauty plinth, but the options I wanted would require some saving, then once again fate intervened, Russ put a cancelled order on eBay, amazingly it was almost the spec I'd have chosen, rosewood veneer, check, cut for a 12" SME, check, piano lacquered finish, check, recessed deck, check, it was also a saving on list, but best of all as it was on eBay I could use PayPal Credit and get two years interest free credit.

One thing I hadn't taken much notice of were feet, Russ asked me what size thread I'd like and as a stop gap I thought I get some Michell Tenderfeet, with I was convinced had a M6 thread, it turns out they are actually M4, the lesson is always double check what you think you know, I then discovered that most M4 to M6 thread adapters are for the optics industry and not cheap, but eventually I found some for car aerials from a German seller and saved the day and a fortune. Having done a crash course in feet I can say that the pricing is up there with cables, £5 each to over £100 each and no real chance to try before you buy, I think a cry of snake oil is more than justified on some of these products. Although they were a stop gap measure having used them I can't see or hear any reason to change the Michells, I have two Michell decks with similar feet, they are very well made, the are excellent value at £7 each and they seem to be effective at channeling energy away from the deck, a rushed buy, but a very good one.

 

With cartridge, arm and plinth assembled t was time to get the deck restored, once again we are lucky in the UK, there's Loricraft, Nortwest Analogue, Audio Grail and several others, quite early on I chose Classic Turntable Company and Ray Clark, I know people who have used Ray with great results and also his pricing is very reasonable, especially if you need a lot of work done, so in November last year I got in touch and sent my 301 off, it took a little longer than anticipated, but last week my fully restored deck arrived back and I'm more than happy with ray's work.

Before


After


Before


After


A proper evaluation of my 301 will take some time, the cart needs to run and the deck won't reach it's best until it's run for 100 hours, I also want to upgrade my phono stage, I've been holding back the big Jazz monos, but so far with an assortment of late sixties vocal LPs and Muddy Waters on UK Pye International all I can say is it's superb, I've only done a basic arm and cart set up, maybe I got everything right first time who knows, but all I can say is that it's superb. I've never heard my mono LPs sound so good, they are in a different league to playing them with a stereo cart and the 301 seems to be up there with both my Orbe/SME IV and my Xerxes 10/Artemiz, both of which are serious performers. It's taken some time, I'm still paying it off and I guess I'm in for around three grand excluding the cart, worth every penny and a lot more beside, I suspect this deck is still going to be spinning in 2054 to celebrate it's centenary.

 

Fellow 301/M2-12R owner here. Looks fantastic. I guess they had to re-do the hammertone, but it looks perfect!

 

Lovely story, lovely deck.

 

I'm not sure which is more impressive, the table itself or the story behind its restoration. In a word, miraculous! I really enjoyed reading this.

 

Yes, parts of it fell off as I handled it and it was really, really dirty, I guess a damp garage had caused it to start lifting, Ray's done a great job, he'd spent a long time getting a paint match for 301s and he specialises in Garrards so knows what he's doing, I really prefer the gray 301s, if I'd found a white one I'd have been tempted to have it changed to gray.

 

That is a real thing of beauty! Fascinating story and the workmanship by all involved is superb. Hats off to you for that restoration mission.

 

It's a beauty - listen with love!

 

Looks amazing! Very nice work (and story too!)

 

The hammer tone was my first love with 301's, but I think the white ones look better in person then they do in pictures, especially if they don't have any dust-bug scars or the like. It's a thick enamel that takes well to polish.

 

Beautiful table! What's funny is when I went through this same process a couple years ago, I made a different choice (presented with all the same options you perfectly describe) than you did at every step. I chose a 401, I chose Audio Grail for the restoration, Vinylista for the plinth, Thomas Schick for the arm, and Denon 103 for the cartridge. And yet I know exactly how much fun you are having with your new deck. I don't think there are any bad choices, and I can imagine how amazing music must sound on that setup. Great backstory and congratulations on bringing that 301 back from the dead. Akin to adopting a rescue dog! Again, beautiful!

 

Your deck was one of the reasons I seriously considered both a Vinylista plinth and an Audio Grail restoration, as you say there aren't bad choices, just lots of good ones and when it comes to Garrards we are really fortunate to have so many options, if I come across a nice 401 at a good price I'll being going through the whole process again.

 

That's what makes a bespoke idler deck so special. The ability to customize things. The interesting people you meet in the idler restoration scene that share your enthusiasm. It's why I hadn't been done with the 301 for more then a couple months before I had to start talking myself out of a TD124. I didn't actually want another turntable, I just wanted to go through the process again.

 

One for stereo, one for mono!

Dual-arm plinths are for sissies! LOL

 

Wow! Awesome.

 

Here I am looking down the barrel of my own reply - gulp - the 301 I inherited two years ago is sitting patiently in the attic.
Onya!

 

Well now you know what you have to do, hopefully there are restorers and plinth builders in New Zealand, but hey, even if you have to send the deck to the UK for restoration it will be worth it I promise you.

 

Great job and a beautiful turntable. I've never gone that far on an old TT but I've tweaked some a bit and it really is satisfying to merge the love of music with some equipment you've put some handwork into. I would get a lot of joy out just watching that one spin......

 

Kudos & respect!

 

What he said. Very jealous

 

Great thread and well done, that's a brilliant story. Nice to get these finds from time to time too. Enjoy!