Garrard 301 restoration project

[Chas B]

Just watched a great video on future of vinyl playback Andy and vibration elimination is a priority as it has been found to deliver even more information from those grooves than has ever been thought.

check this discussion out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTGzoYlgxjM&t=86s

I have watched it. The designers/scientists involved in the discussion have access to some very specialised equipment, to be honest it made me question if I was fooling myself to think I can build a turntable that is even close to the high-end products. I've recovered now but it is a humbling conversation.

[Chas B]

I have watched it. The designers/scientists involved in the discussion have access to some very specialised equipment, to be honest it made me question if I was fooling myself to think I can build a turntable that is even close to the high-end products. I've recovered now but it is a humbling conversation.

Having listened to the second half of their discussion again ( I wasn't giving it my full attention first time around) I found it very positive. Well worth a listen.
Now i'm off to look at my tonearm vector angles...

[Jimbo]

Having listened to the second half of their discussion again ( I wasn't giving it my full attention first time around) I found it very positive. Well worth a listen.
Now i'm off to look at my tonearm vector angles...

What got me interested was the fact that they have still someway to go before everything in the groove can be recovered. It certainly motivates me to try and implement as much vibration control that I possibly can without resorting to huge expense. Yes a great discussion for sure and quite inspiring.

[Wakefield Turntables]

The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT XXXXVII - Brain Wave

Wee update! So, it looks like I might have the very rough idea of making a bearing clamp for the Garrard bearing. I've ordered some threaded rod of various sizes, now just need to hunt around the garage for a decent piece of steel and my drill bits. Short and sweet chaps, stay tuned......

[Wakefield Turntables]

What got me interested was the fact that they have still someway to go before everything in the groove can be recovered. It certainly motivates me to try and implement as much vibration control that I possibly can without resorting to huge expense. Yes a great discussion for sure and quite inspiring.

That's why I've been messing around with Townshend gear for a while. Not perfect but better than nothing unless you want to spend silly money on a platform to house an electron microscope away from vibration.

[Jimbo]

That's why I've been messing around with Townshend gear for a while. Not perfect but better than nothing unless you want to spend silly money on a platform to house an electron microscope away from vibration.

I will take a look at the Townshend gear as I think I could improve on my Vibrapods!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Expensive but it’s end stage it’s stops spending loads of money on countless products and it holds its value

[Wakefield Turntables]

The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT XXXXVIII - I can feel a rant a 'comin.


Not an update as such but maybe some hints and tips on how you could save yourself £51K by not buying the new Garrard 301 Advance, and maybe an uodate on my bearing modifcation (if the materials arrive).

Stay tuned.

[Wakefield Turntables]

The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT XXXXIX - An unexpected twist.... Well two actually


TWIST ONE
Firstly, no pictures tonight. I can't be bothered. So, first unexpected twist. SME release a re-worked for £51000 I'm happy for SME and wish them every bit of luck shifting them. At first I was a little disgusted with the sheer amount of money that you'd have to spend to get one of these reworked decks and then, as usual, I gave the situation some thought and wondered how I could use this to my advantage. It's really rather very good having the reviewer as a forum member, you get some interesting pieces of information which could be used in ways to improve ones own 301 . Firstly the motor in these new decks got a rebuild and service and from what's known so far has been left to its original design. Well, my motor has undergone the same process, a complete rebuild, service, and where needed old parts replaced with new. The bearing is new, well there is bugger all I can do about getting a brand new SME Garrard 301 bearing, I have a Bastin Modified Garrard 401 bearing running in my Garrard 301. It's works a treat and to my ears sounds excellent. The new bearings have phosphor bronze sleeve and new ball bearing/thrust pads. It would be interesting to see if any of the after market upgrades (ball bearing/thrust pad) sound anything similar to the SME equivalent. I could. I suppose have a play around with my original Garrard 301 bearing and see if things can be improved messing around with some of the after market stuff.

SME have also decided to keep the original platter mat. I remember at the very start of this project assessing numerous platter mats and sticking with the original Garrard until I heard the Tenuto mat. The fact that SME with stuck with the original has vindicated my initial feelings towards the Garrard original. Interestingly the new SME 301 has been tested and the new platter mats have quite a profund impact on bearing noise. I would love to know the bearing noise figures using a Tenuto mat. Through grove noise was -70.9db with the new rubber mat and the new SME bearing. I would love to have my 401 bearing with the original Garrard mat assessed, then with the Tenuto and finally pitched against the SME offerings, of course this will never happen.

The Idler wheel also appears to have been left alone. Well that makes me feel better as well. I remember ages ago having my Idler wheel checked by Martin Bastin for flat spots and I asked him to re-rebuild my work. I went to the trouble of replacing and refurbishing everything on the idler wheel and it's housing. Yes, OCD kicked in. The end result of all this fettling was a completely silent functioning idler wheel. So, I'm also happy with this bit of my 301 with respects to introducing noise into the platter or flat spots on the wheel producing speed variations of the platter, altough this is largely irrelevant with the Pheonix Engineering system installed.

The HIFI news review also highlighted some important information regarding two sources of noise getting into the platter and these (already known) sources being the bearing (already discussed) and the motor via coupling of the high speed pulley and idler wheel to the inside of the platter. The rubber mat mitigates the bearing noise but only a decoupling of the motor would help reduce some of the noise getting into the platter. So what has this taught me? Well firstly I'm happy so far with my efforts at damping noise getting into the platter from the bearing with the Tenuto mat and secondly I really do need to get my arse into gear and decouple the motor to the 301. I suppose having an excellent running motor on the 301 will mitigate some of the noise getting into the platter. It appears I have gone down the same route as SME and replaced and rebuilt the motor with all new parts. So, again, I'm happy I've done what I can do help my 301 be the best it can

Finally, the plinth. We may never know what SME used as an "advanced polymer" but my thoughts turn to the fact that SME have gone down the this route and also the feet for the plinth are made from the same stuff. My first homemade plinth was a Bamboo prototype which is still a work-in- progress. I did a small experiment a while ago replacing my original bamboo feet with some ball-bearing height adjustable feet. The jury is still out with respects to the bamboo or bearing based feet but I do have my doubts about the bearing based feet. Maybe SME was onto something with using all one material. My deck is sitting on a Townshend Seismic platform so maybe this argument is pointless and maybe material of the feet on my deck is irrelevant . The tonearm on the new plinth is further isolated from the plinth, yep I've tried that with a Panzerholz SME tonearm mount and finally the 301 chassis has been isolated from the plinth as well. I have made no provision for this apart from the usual rubber rings around the mounting bolts located in the chassis itself.

The things I have learned and need to implement :-

1. Decouple the motor.
2. Provide improved provision for isolation between the 301 and the plinth.
3. Remake my plinth from Panzerholz or Permali
4. Maybe experiment with some of the newer ball bearing after market bearing upgrades with a donour 301 bearing.

So, this is how I've used the new 301 release to my advantage, I realise my 301 will probably never be as good as the SME release but I can see where SME have been working and concentrate so of my own efforts to some extents its already what I had planned but it's nice to see someone with SME's experience and knowledge vindicating some of my ideas I had for my 301.

TWIST TWO

This happened whilst walking the woofer (sorry for the speaker pun). I have been thinking about a bearing collar mount for sometime and did intend using bamboo and I may still go down this route. I did also want to install a bearing clamp to try and stiffen up the mounting on the bearing to the chassis. Well the collar is still a work in progress but the clamp took another step forward today. I will use tensioned threaded rod to a apply a downward pull on the bearing to better improve coupling of the bearing to the chassis instead of a clamp attached at the bearings base, this will then attach to a stiffened stainless steel plate which will live under the plinth. This system is very simple and negates the need to mess around producing a custom shaped clamp. So, the bearing clamp has been designed, the collar is still in the works. I just need some 5mm bamboo to play around with. These little experiments will hopefully address (to some extent) the known problem of flex in the 301 chassis. My early experiments with the USA stiffening plate appear to have worked well so I wonder if I can push things a little further with my bearing experiments .


So, thanks to SME for validating some of my work on the 301 and showing me a clear path forward for the 301. Stay tuned.

[Jimbo]

Very good comparison and analysis of your 301 pathway to the future based on the SME work. I like your logical approach and thinking process to try achieve even greater performance from your 301. It's always a wise thing, as I have found, to look a what others have done (no matter what the cost!) in order to see if you are on the right path and if there are things to learn in order to improve your gear and hopefully listening experience.

Obviously we don't all have the resources or time the specialists companies have but through our endeavours there are always economical and "home brew" technology that can be used to raise the bar. I know your efforts in this area for all your turntables has been very thorough and realised great improvements.


What would be most interesting would be a back to back listening session comparing your TT with the SME and to see/hear what differences there are and which one you prefer however I suppose determining which parts contribute to those differences could be tricky?


Great post Andy.