My Restored 1954 Garrard 301

love threads like this. Deck is looking awesome, time to enjoy it now.

 

Beautiful deck. It’s great that you’ve put it back into service.

 

This is the land of making things work again, so no problems there! The only missing part so far is the treasure chest...
DD

 

Hadn't come across the Classic TT Company. His charges appear a bargain for the level of work undertaken. I see he can take the 301 to another level for £3K complete.

 

Compared to some of the other companies Ray's charges are very reasonable, especially as it includes any parts, a very nicely done replacement shipping box copying the original and even a reproduction Garrard mat, if your deck needs a complete rebuild he's probably the best option in the UK, also I've noticed that CTC restored Garrards seem to fetch really good money on eBay, so if you buy a deck at a reasonable price, or have one stuck in the loft you can't really lose on it. I tried to ignore his ultimate 301 as I couldn't afford one, but he knows what he's doing with Garrards so I bet it's good and I believe it comes in quite a bit less than the Loricraft Garrard 501.

 

I guess a short update is in order as I've managed to get a couple of listening sessions in, as deck and cart are still running in I'm still holding off on the really nice Jazz and some mint titles I have stashed, but among other things I've played some Ellas, (UK HMVs), Muddy Waters, (UK Pyes) and an early copy of "Blue Train".

First of all I went into this with my eyes open, I'd already heard proper mono carts and decent idler decks, so I thought knew what to expect especially when it comes to reduced noise compared with using a stereo cart, even so there's no substitute for trying things for yourself in your own system. I bought this particular copy of "Folk Singer" in the early 1990s, it looks nice, but does have several light marks, on stereo decks it sounded terrible, lots of noise and I'd long ago chalked it up to experience, it sat on the shelf whilst I played reissues, I thought I'd try it and with the Zero A on the 301 it's like an entirely different record, almost all of the noise is gone, there is some slight surface noise, but not intrusive, (I need to find a near mint copy of this), the music itself is right up there with the MoFi, Classic and other reissues, perhaps less of a hi fi cut, but to borrow an overused phrase it's such an intimate recording you really are in the studio. The UK Pye is an early sixties pressing and I'm really wondering if it will improve even more with a 0.7 stylus, perhaps find less groove damage, having said that I also played the Pye "Best Of Muddy Waters", this is a later release and in lovely condition it plays perfectly with the 1 mil stylus so who knows what size the Pyes were originally cut for.

Ella sounded fantastic, I skipped through some of the songbooks and the playback was up there with the best I've heard them sound, the Coltrane was interesting, it sounded great, but it's the only one where I suspect that my audiophile reissues beat this particular early mono, definitely one for a future head to head and this was my lesser copy, (I'm still running in), so when I do the head to head I'll use my better copy. One bonus of this set up is that I can finally make an informed choice where I have doubles of mono copies, I should be able to let go of a few things where previously I couldn't be sure which was the better copy on my stereo deck.

I'm now trying to raise some money to buy the Gold Note PH 10 phono stage, this will allow me to connect my Michell Orbe and 301 through identical phono inputs and do those head to head shoot outs, it will also allow me to dig out earlier LPs that don't use the RIAA playback curve, so much more to discover, it still amazes me just how much potential sound quality there is in 60-70 year old records and how much of it can be retrieved using a 65 year old deck, the Garrard really is a musical time machine.

 

Very interesting and wow great work!!

 

The more i dip into this thread the more jealous i get. I would love to have more than one deck. Enjoy your little treasure

 

That's what I'm talkin bout! Beautiful! If I'd didn't make a sound it would be family forever! Love it

 

There are vinyl records that don't have riaa eq?
Amazing work by the way, the restoration looks beautiful especially on the inside!

-Dave

 

Playback equalization for 78 rpm shellacs and early 33⅓ LPs - Audacity Wiki is a list of the very many curves that were used.

It says of 33 1/3 rpm records:

"Early 33⅓ LP labels and their EQ
After the launch of the “long-playing record 33⅓ rpm” by Columbia in 1948 (which used vinyl discs and a narrower groove width – microgroove records or M33) record producers experimented a lot to fully exploit the potential of the new medium. Bass shelving came into use to limit the necessary bass boost in playback and – as a consequence of the extended frequency range – necessary gain reached values as high as +/- 20 dB. So recording characteristics varied considerably!

The “poor sound quality” of some early LPs is nowadays considered to be mostly a result of the wrong EQ in playback.

Standardization was reached with the “New Orthophonic” curve of RCA which was to become the world standard by the name of RIAA. In America most labels switched to RIAA around 1955 – Europe followed by 1962."

Followed by a list as long as that for 78's

 

Are you sure you need the complexity of the Goldnote? You could buy 2 NVA phono 2 with twin PS for the same. (One MM/High output MC and one low output MC). Do you seriously have any records that are pre RIAA? Michael Fremer looked into this and contrary to claims by makers of certain stages you have to go back to certain labels before 1959 to find this. All 1960s discs use RIAA contrary to claims for Decca, Columbia etc. I would safely bet on the NVA being better sounding. The fixed loading is fine for most cartridges except those with the oddest requirements.

 

I've been quietly picking mono LPs up for over 30 years and now have well over 100 10" LPs, mostly Jazz and several hundred pre '59 12" LPs so potentially I can put the PH 10 to good use, or at the very least discover if using non RIAA curves makes a real difference I can hear. I've already agreed to sell my Electrocompaniet phono stage towards the cost, so I'm getting there and the PH 10 does appear to be both an excellent stage and excellent value, currently around £1100.

 

Never owned a turntable in my life, but that thing is BAD ASS!!!

 

Bloody hell Martin, great story and a wonderful result. Yes, I am jealous!

 

This thread is a joy to read! And that deck... Wowsers.

 

It's £1100 plus VAT in fact which makes it fairly well priced compared with most stages sold through retail rather than direct. Didn't realise you had so many true vintage Lps. Must have been hard to come by in decent shape. I read the positive TNT review which still didn't give me much idea of it's sound.

 

There are at least two places doing it for £1100 inclusive, although I suspect it will go up to £1300+ very soon, hopefully not before I can raise some money, unfortunately as with most reviews they are all pretty vague on detail and there don't seem to be any dealers near, so I'm taking a gamble.

The advantages of buying up collections if I get the chance, sometimes you find quantity and quality, Jazz like Classical is often well looked after, although how some of the 10"s sound with the mono stylus will be an interesting experience, I may well be disappointed, hopefully not on all of them though.

 

Nice work! I like to see things like this.

 

Beautiful table and I'm sure it sounds as good as it looks. Some day I hope to find a 301 restore it and add it to the stable. They are near impossible to find near me.

 

Beautiful! And thanks for the story.

 

Great work, and a great story! I bet that you must have kicked yourself later for passing up on those 401s.

 

Curious, what is the gray coating for the metal parts. I see these old projectors and other machines from the 40s that have this durable rough coating over the iron body's ( I assume iron due to the weight) and they still look new after all these years, not to mention the amazing build quality.
Your turntable looks like the same type coating. Anyway beautiful job.