Garrard 301 restoration project

[brian2957]

Ah..the Audiosilente idler wheel for the GL75 must be a totally different beast then.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Ah..the Audiosilente idler wheel for the GL75 must be a totally different beast then.

Yep, just a tiny weeny bit!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Tonight's Update - The Garrard Project Pt XXVIII - FrankenSPU.


More messing about with the Garrard 301/SME 3012 and SPU's. I'm a lucky bloke in that I own quite a few very nice carts and over the years I have developed a very specific taste with respects to what I like. One of the things I love more than anything in Audiofoolery is Silver. One of the things I don't like in Audiofoolery is plated wire. So, here I'am with a quandry, I have a very nice Royal N II SPU, with a lovely Replicant profile styles, and then things are spoiled because the coils are gold plated silver. " class="smile"> I've messed around with gold and silver plated copper before and have discovered that I didn't really like either. I'm evaluating the pro's and con's of the best bits of the Royal N & the Silver Mesiter II SPU's and seeing if I can come up with something that takes the best of both and then produces something extra special. Here is a spec's list of both carts.



ROYAL N SPU

Output voltage at 1000 Hz, 5cm/sec. - 0.2 mV
Channel balance at 1 kHz < 1 dB
Channel separation at 1 kHz > 25 dB
Channel separation at 15 kHz > 20 dB
Frequency response - 20-20.000 Hz + 1,5/- 0 dB
Tracking ability at 315Hz at recommended tracking force *) - 60 µm
Compliance, dynamic, lateral - 8 µm/mN
Stylus type - Nude Ortofon Replicant 100
Stylus tip radius - r/R 5/100 µm
Tracking force range - 2.5-3.5 g (25-35 mN)
Tracking force, recommended - 3.0 g (30 mN)
Tracking angle - 20° *) Typical value
Internal impedance, DC resistance - 7 ohm
Recommended load impedance > 100 ohm
Coilwire material - Goldplated silver
Cartridge colour - Shiny black
Cartridge weight - 13 g


SILVER MEISTER II SPU

Output voltage at 1000 Hz 5cm/sec - 0.3 mV
Channel balance at 1 kHz < 1 dB
Channel separation at 1 kHz > 20 dB
Channel separation at 15 kHz > 10 dB
Frequency response 20 - 20,000 Hz +2/-1 dB
Tracking ability at 315 Hz at recommended tracking force *) > 70 μm
Compliance, dynamic, lateral - 8 μm/mN
Stylus type - Nude Elliptical
Stylus tip radius - r/R 8/18 μm
Tracking force range - 3.0-5.0 g (30-50 mN)
Tracking force recommended - 4.00 g (40 mN)
Tracking angle - 20º*) Typical value
Internal impedance, DC resistance - 3 ohm
Recommended load impedance > 10 ohm
Coilwire material - Silver, 6-nines
Cartridge body material - Ground wood and resin composite
Cartridge colour - Shiny black
Cartridge Weight - 28 gram



Not much to choose bewteen the two, the Royal N does not have the damped wood resin cartridge body of the Silver Meister II, but then I do have the Royal N mounted in a Orsonic AV101b head shell which is known as one the best, hopefully this will mitigate some of the damping properties of the Silver Meister II body. The biggest difference is stylus profile. Setting up the Royal N was a breeze. My setup includes using Dr. Feickhart's protracter for alignment and then a test record (Ultimate Analog Test LP) + Fozgo meter for channel balance adjustment. The test record is spun at exactly 33.33 which is controlled by my Pheonix Engineering PSU+tachometer, so a very (hopefully) accurate way to ensure that things are setup correctly. I wanted to go a little further into setting the tonearm/cartridge up and I decided to check compliance and effective mass, I use korfaudio.com/calculator

and very good it is too. I found that both the Silver Meister II and the Royal were excellent matches for my SME 3012, the Royal N giving slightly better results for acceleration at the head shell, the stylus excusrion status were pretty much identical with a small hump at about 5hz.



I already have a very very good idea of how a Silver Meister II sounds on my system, so now it's a case of listening and seeing how I like the Royal N with the Replicant stylus profile. So far I have a very wide, fast, vivid soundstage, plenty of seperation between the instruments, excellent detail. Ultimately if things pan out I may end up doing an experiment with a Silver Meister II SPU with boron cantilever and replicant profile. We shall see, stay tuned.....

[Wakefield Turntables]

Tonight's Update - The Garrard Project Pt XXIX - Further Royal N SPU evaluation & new tonearm.

My much loved SME 3012 is recieving some much needed repair work and a possible rewire. In the meantime I have installed my SME V-12 and a Royal N II SPU combination. It sounds very very good and shall remain in the mix for the time being, I'n enjoying the additional data retrieval from the Replicant stylus on the Royal N SPU but the gold plated silver coils are taking a while for me to get used to them. I love my Silver Meister II SPU and still think that this is the way forward, the more I listen to the Royal N the more I think the Silver Meister II should have had a FGS or Replicant stylus profile. Now I'm in the process of designing a new plinth which will hopefully incorperate better damping properties alongside improved tonearm and motor decoupling. We shall see.





As ever stay tuned...

[Jimbo]

Fabulous beast there Andy. Hardcore stuff!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Cheers Jim, I've a few ideas I want to try with the 301 setup. I'd like to replace the bamboo shelves with permali and then even replace some of the stainless steel washers with permali variants. The idea is the damp and listen vibrations getting into the 301. Should be good fun, and that alongside a new plinth design should keep me happy for a while.

[Jimbo]

Cheers Jim, I've a few ideas I want to try with the 301 setup. I'd like to replace the bamboo shelves with permali and then even replace some of the stainless steel washers with permali variants. The idea is the damp and listen vibrations getting into the 301. Should be good fun, and that alongside a new plinth design should keep me happy for a while.

I think vibration control is always worth pursing with turntables and anything is worth trying. I have had very good results with the set up I have and cannot determine anything getting back to the stylus via the turntable even when I submit it to the torture test of massive very loud pounding bass via a suspended wooden floor. I have gone down the MASS route as I believe the more you can employ either to the turntable and its surrounding environment the better.

I am not a big fan of equipment racks as they are always hollow structures by their nature and provide plenty of opportunity for vibration to screw with the structure and therefore the platform on which you sit the turntable. However I am sure with different materials vibration can be mitigated. Its all about experimentation and listening.

[Wakefield Turntables]

This Morning's Update - The Garrard Project Pt XXX - Jim inspired, cosmic rant, sort of......

It's Saturday morning, I'm sipping coffee before the morning dog walk and thinking about Jim's comment, see below.

I think vibration control is always worth pursing with turntables and anything is worth trying. I have had very good results with the set up I have and cannot determine anything getting back to the stylus via the turntable even when I submit it to the torture test of massive very loud pounding bass via a suspended wooden floor. I have gone down the MASS route as I believe the more you can employ either to the turntable and its surrounding environment the better.

I am not a big fan of equipment racks as they are always hollow structures by their nature and provide plenty of opportunity for vibration to screw with the structure and therefore the platform on which you sit the turntable. However I am sure with different materials vibration can be mitigated. Its all about experimentation and listening.

These comments got me thinking a little bit. MASS is all very well and good but everything vibrates no matter how much mass an object has. The biggest single thing I can think of is the known universe! It's a collection of particles (of varying sizes) which are all connected by various known/unknown forces which enable resonance to be transmitted and therefore vibration. We can safely say the universe vibrates and is prone is vibration, just like a turntable. I honestly don't think that a large solid sideboard (like yours Jim), or a skeletal rack (like mine) or indeed any other design is perfect in vibration control/mitigation. A solid cabinet just acts as a massive reflection point for anything coming out of your speakers and that's why your sound traps probably work quite well beacuse they are placed near your cabinet. My sound traps are placed just after my equipment tracks and probably work in a similar nature, so touche! It's probably the sound traps which stop our racks/cabinets acting like massive reflective surfaces.

Jim, I think you hit the nail on the head with mitigation, and usage of different materials. My 301 sits on a Townshend seismic platform which is a CLD design sitting on four springs that are tuned to mitigate certain vibrational frequencies getting into the TT. I think this is a good place to start. I switched from compressed wood (quadraspire) to Bamboo racks. I did this for two reasons. Firstly the improved damping quality of Bamboo and secondly the racks are made from opposing compressed layers of bamboo which I hope makes it more difficult for the transmission of vibration travelling up into the rack. I'll be taking these ideas further. My main thoughts are to concentrate on the pieces of equipment which generate the most vibration on the rack, these being the amp, pre-amp, and the turntables itself. This is where things getting interesting beacause I have several variations which could be tested, I could use Permali on it's own or try a CLD like design with Permali, an intermediate material and then Bamboo. I could even design a CLD like washer on the equipment racks to try and damp vibration passing between the nuts and main struts as they connect the individual platforms on the rack. It's all fun stuff and gets me thinking about just how far we can push old technology!

Stay tuned.....

[Jimbo]

I think using different materials certainly helps as I use quite a variety.

Just a quick account of my set up FWIW

Very heavy solid wood retro side cabinet filled with 200 records used as a base. This piece of furniture has huge mass and makes a great base for the turntable.
I then use some felt squares with Vibropods sitting on these. On top of this I have a compact laminate shelf which weighs similar to granite! The turntable sits on cones with ball bearings. The cones are also separated from the TT with some very dense foam/rubber washers. The TT motor sits on small discs of sorbathane.

Experimenting with feedback into the stylus now results in very little vibration if any at all. It is certainly not audible. Importantly the Preamp is sitting on a roller shelf and is damped internally now with sheets of silent coat. So the whole result means I can walk the system up without and noticeable vibration feedback.

Of course there must be some and I could always do more. Air shelf??

But just to go back to your idea of using a selection of different materials I think is key as they all mitigate vibration at different frequencies.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I'm interested on how you experimented the effects of feedback through the stylus . Can you explain how you did it, or give me a call if you don't fancy doing a load of typing.