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New plinth for Garrard 301

Dneprrider

Dneprrider

Active Member
I bought some rough red oak planks last year to make a plinth for a new-to-me Garrard 301. I stored the lumber and let it dry until I was ready to make it. With an upcoming move in my near future, I had the 301 safely packed up and stored away. As luck would have it another 301 with original shipping box fell into my lap. Since this 301 didn't have a plinth, now was the perfect time to make the oak plinth while I still had my workshop set up before the move.

Garrard 301




Planning the raw lumber:



After squaring up the edges, and glueing together in cutting board style.





I wanted a dark colour to the wood so I used the water-based dark walnut dye from Lee Valley tools. Originally I was going to put on an oil rub finish to see the beautiful grain, but after doing so I though it would look better in a high gloss finish. So on went an oil based urethane finish. I can make another later as I have wood remaining.




I made the plinth 25" wide and 18" deep and about 2" thick. The large size is to allow for additional arms in the future. The primary arm position shown can support different arms. The arm board is 3.5" diameter and I made a few of them to swap out arms. I have one cut for an SME 3009 ready to go.

Currently I have a Hadcock Gh-228 Super with AT440mla installed. It sounds fantastic.





The feet are simple rubber feet with on threaded inserts to allow for adjustment. Simple but effective.



I will be getting some thin anti-vibration foam gasket material to wrap the bolt and place between the bolt head/washer and rubber foot to improve the foot anti-vibration characteristics. More on that in a future later post.

I know that everyone seems to favour one particular design over another and that this plinth may not be to everyones taste, but I like it.

Thanks for looking.
 
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Two 301 in a year or two? Wow that is some awesome luck! Congrats.

I am officially a jealous pig.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Nice work on that one. Wonder what the next one will look like? One of these days I need to trip over an old idler drive needing a new plinth. I'm only back to 1970 on my TT right now.
 
The hard decision is whether to not I need two 301's. I have plenty of other nice tables and with a move to a much smaller place soon (for a couple of years) storage will be an issue. But then again the two are slightly different, strobe platter vs non-strobe platter and since they didn't cost too much. I probably will end up keeping them both, then I can install the Garrard ATP-10 and Decca FFSS tonearm and Decca cartridge that came in the bundle. I can alway lets one of my Duals go if I need the space.
 
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As an update to this story. I came across a very nice used 301 Zebra wood plinth cut for multiple arms. One hole was cut for a SME tonearm. A previous user had installed a non-SME arm, which resulted in numerous screw holes marring the nice plinth surface.



I bought this plinth kind of sight unseen in Vancouver and had a family member deliver it to Nova Scotia. It was quite heavy for a luggage bag I might add.

So putting this all together was this years Christmas holiday project.
I was planning to install an SME-3009 on the plinth, however it turned out to be cut for a 12” arm. Due to the high prices of the 3012 arms I decided to go with a 12” Jelco SA-750L in grey/chrome. I have an Ammonite Acoustics improved mounting collar ordered and it should be here any day now.

I used some scrap maple to make a new armboard which served several purposes, one to raise the arm to the correct height for the 301 and second to cover the numerous screw holes and SME cutout in the plinth.


I stained the walnut using dark walnut dye, sealed it with shellac and top coated with lacquer.




The Decca arm is just mounted using putty to see how it performs and if I like it enough to stay I will permanently mount it. The second hole is cut for a 9” arm so I have to adjust the hole for the different Decca mounting distance.






Currently running a great sounding AT160ML cartridge on the Jelco and a Mk I Decca FFSS cart on the Decca tonearm.

 
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That piece of luggage must have been quite a load. That plinth looks similar to the ones
found on ebay that several AKers have bought.
Looks great!
 
It all looks good, but I don't think that AT is a good match for the Jelco. ATs are pretty high compliance, and the Jelco is big and heavy. I had the same setup for my 124, and ran a DL-103R on it. Sounded nice, but when I moved to a benz glider, the Jelco was overpowering the cart. Went to a lighter arm and it sang. I'd change one or the other (arm / cart).
 
jgordon said:
It all looks good, but I don't think that AT is a good match for the Jelco. ATs are pretty high compliance, and the Jelco is big and heavy. I had the same setup for my 124, and ran a DL-103R on it. Sounded nice, but when I moved to a benz glider, the Jelco was overpowering the cart. Went to a lighter arm and it sang. I'd change one or the other (arm / cart).
Click to expand...

I also originally thought that the AT160 was too high a compliance and I have been using it on my Mayware Formula IV on an RD11. But after reading about the AT150 which has the same dynamic compliance as the AT160. I decided to give the AT160 a try on the Jelco and I have no complaints.
http://www.dagogo.com/audio-technica-at150mlx-dual-moving-magnet-cartridge-review
Here is the related segment from the review:
"Many buyers, seeing that the AT150MLX is an MM with ultra-light stylus assembly, might incorrectly assume that this is a high compliance cartridge. It is not. It has the same rated* compliance as several Audio Note UK, Audio Technica (AT33), Dynavector, Miyajima, MySonic and Ortofon moving coils. On the other hand, the Cartridge Database offers this footnote: AT publishes their dynamic compliance specifications relative to 100Hz . This cartridge isn’t in the same ballpark as high compliance moving magnets: The Stanton 500E is 20×10-6cm/dyne; the Shure V15iii, my favorite basic cartridge for an SME V, is 22.5×10-6cm/dyne; the Ortofon OM40 is 25×10-6cm/dyne. All in all, there are over 240 moving magnet cartridges with a rate compliance above 25 on the Cartridge Database. So, what this means is, your tweaky low-mass arms, like the horrible Black Widow, and the much superior Formula IV, will sound not so good with this cartridge. Matching cartridge, arm, tonearm cable and phono stage are much more important for good sound, than finding the most “awesome” individual components and throwing them together."
 
As long as it sounds good. That's what counts.

Dneprrider said:
I also originally thought that the AT160 was too high a compliance and I have been using it on my Mayware Formula IV on an RD11. But after reading about the AT150 which has the same dynamic compliance as the AT160. I decided to give the AT160 a try on the Jelco and I have no complaints.
http://www.dagogo.com/audio-technica-at150mlx-dual-moving-magnet-cartridge-review
Here is the related segment from the review:
"Many buyers, seeing that the AT150MLX is an MM with ultra-light stylus assembly, might incorrectly assume that this is a high compliance cartridge. It is not. It has the same rated* compliance as several Audio Note UK, Audio Technica (AT33), Dynavector, Miyajima, MySonic and Ortofon moving coils. On the other hand, the Cartridge Database offers this footnote: AT publishes their dynamic compliance specifications relative to 100Hz . This cartridge isn’t in the same ballpark as high compliance moving magnets: The Stanton 500E is 20×10-6cm/dyne; the Shure V15iii, my favorite basic cartridge for an SME V, is 22.5×10-6cm/dyne; the Ortofon OM40 is 25×10-6cm/dyne. All in all, there are over 240 moving magnet cartridges with a rate compliance above 25 on the Cartridge Database. So, what this means is, your tweaky low-mass arms, like the horrible Black Widow, and the much superior Formula IV, will sound not so good with this cartridge. Matching cartridge, arm, tonearm cable and phono stage are much more important for good sound, than finding the most “awesome” individual components and throwing them together."
Click to expand...
 
I finally had time to work on the Decca arm. Luck played a part in that the predrilled tonearm hole was cut almost to spec for the Decca's 8 3/8" mounting distance. I also had to re-terminate the original tonearm wiring as it wasn't done well previously. One nice feature of the Decca cartridge and arm is that it can supply both a stereo signal and mono. I configured it to include both the Left and Right channels and mono via the lateral signal wire. To test the mono I tried a mint mono copy of Carol Sloan "Live at 30th Street". It sounds pretty darn good.



 
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