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My Garrard Lab 80 Obsession

Looks to be a member of the B&O family. Their stylus assemblies resemble what you have. Not an SP10 or 12 so, must be earlier. I ran SP12s for a few years and count them as being amongst my favorites. I think I still have a 12 body. Finding a stylus is the hard part as they are scarce at best over here.
 
Yes early Lab 80. Good project. It is an incredible idler whose only shortcoming is the tonearm. Not that I have many complaints about that. It is built like a tank and has been described as the most aesthetically pleasing record changer ever made. I don't have the automatic spindle so mine is completely manual. I don't use mine everyday but I can't imagine ever getting rid of it. It exudes a certain amount of class and early 60's styling that I really appreciate.

The gentleman that designed the Lab 80 also designed the 401. What a nice pair that would be to own.

I run a Shure M97xE at 1.25 grams with no trouble. The Shure has a retractable brush but I find that the brush causes more mistracking problems than I care to talk about. However, if you have a horribly warped record the Shure, with the brush down, will track over anything. Also, Garrard made a small weight set for that headhsell so you could mount lighter weight cartridges in it. The Pickering that came with my unit was mounted with the weights. One more thing, my Shure stylus force gauge confirmed that the scale on the side of the tonearm was accurate, at least on my unit. It was more accurate than my Dual.
 

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131east23 said:
Also, Garrard made a small weight set for that headhsell so you could mount lighter weight cartridges in it.
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Where does the weight fit, under the cart mounting screws, or into that dead space at the very end of the headshell? I ask because the M93E I'm running on mine is too light, and I currently have a penny taped to the back of the headshell to let me balance it out properly.
 
Specs on the 880 are decent. I'd look for the stylus and give it a good tryout. I'd bet a number of Empire TT owners would like to add it to their TTs.
 
Sorta looks like the 888 I have in my junk box, but with a very different stylus insert arrangement. The 888 had fewer parts and probably better sample-to-sample consistency.
 
gadget73 said:
Where does the weight fit, under the cart mounting screws, or into that dead space at the very end of the headshell? I ask because the M93E I'm running on mine is too light, and I currently have a penny taped to the back of the headshell to let me balance it out properly.
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It is "T" shaped and is affixed between the cart and the head shell by the two screws. The weight sticks out into that dead space. See pic.
 

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You are welcome. The 880 had a .7 mil spherical stylus and was white. The 880p had a .6 mil spherical stylus and was green. I have one of each obtained on Garrard's I bought on Ebay. There was also an 880pe which was an elliptical, color unknown.
 
My Lab 80

Finally picked up a Lab 80 base off the bay & pulled my 80 out of the garage. I picked it up at a thrift last year in very nice shape physically in the original box & packing for $5.00. Got it set up most everything functions except auto start. It will auto shut off & return to the seat. Has a Shure M80E cart, will change that out later. The big problem is intermittent hum, especially when I touch the tone arm. I have to play with it to quiet it down. I attached a ground wire to the internal ground and to the amp, helps but did not totally eliminate the hum. Suggestions?
 

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A Lab80 first series does not auto-start unless you stack records from the umbrella spindle. That makes it semi-automatic. The 80MkII does auto-start with either spindle. As for the hum, do you suppose the cartridge is on the fritz? :music::D
 
KevinL said:
A Lab80 first series does not auto-start unless you stack records from the umbrella spindle. That makes it semi-automatic. The 80MkII does auto-start with either spindle. As for the hum, do you suppose the cartridge is on the fritz? :music::D
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Got that from the manual, Thanks. As far as the hum goes, I managed to lessen it by moving the head shell back & forth until it minimized, but is still there. Do you think a shot of De-Ox would help there or is that a bad idea? I don't think the cart is bad. I had another head shell & tried it and the hum is still there. I followed the wires back under the plinth & they hummed as I touched them. I thought about replacing the phono cables if they are the culprit, but they are hard wired in and not plug in like my GT-55. My soldering skills aren't that good.
 
I had the same problem with my Type A, and this was the culprit ...

rcaplug.jpg


http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=358467
 
gary7 said:
Got that from the manual, Thanks. As far as the hum goes, I managed to lessen it by moving the head shell back & forth until it minimized, but is still there. Do you think a shot of De-Ox would help there or is that a bad idea? I don't think the cart is bad. I had another head shell & tried it and the hum is still there. I followed the wires back under the plinth & they hummed as I touched them. I thought about replacing the phono cables if they are the culprit, but they are hard wired in and not plug in like my GT-55. My soldering skills aren't that good.
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If you are asking about De-Oxing the phono cartridge the answer is NO! :nono: Leave the cart as it is. You might try temporally connecting a wire from the screw on top of the tt ( or any bare metal part on the tt) to the amplifier ground and see if that helps. If you have a wire with alligator clips on the ends you could try that.
 
kaplang said:
If you are asking about De-Oxing the phono cartridge the answer is NO! :nono: Leave the cart as it is. You might try temporally connecting a wire from the screw on top of the tt ( or any bare metal part on the tt) to the amplifier ground and see if that helps. If you have a wire with alligator clips on the ends you could try that.
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I actually meant spraying the end of the tone arm were it plugs in, I also have some De-OX Gold contact enhancer I thought might help. I did run a wire from where the green ground wire is under the plinth to the receiver. It helped, but it is still very touchy. I have to work at getting the head shell just right in the socket or I get bad feed back or loss of channel, and this is with 2 different heads & carts. It is not a plug & play deal. So I am thinking there is still a ground fault some were in the wire chain. :scratch2:
 
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