Garrard 301 - Project
I have been contemplating for a while which turntable to pursue given so many choices. Every time I look around, I just can’t help drooling over a fully restored Garrard 301 or 401. Aside from being an idler-drive, I keep reading and hearing about their unique ability to reproduce music with its sense of drive and impact thus making them very desirable to own. And with available meticulous restoration services and gorgeous plinth options, what’s not to like, right!
Would you please share your experience, good and pitfalls (if any) with a restored Garrard 301 to avoid before I go down this path.
And what about the IEC inlet and power cord, would they be of any significance. My two choices would be Furutech FI-09 NCF or FI-06 (G) inlets.
I have already purchased a Reed 3P Cocobolo 10.5” with Finewire C37+Cryo tonearm/interconnect phono cable with KLEI RCA plugs option.
Still exploring Cart Options, so please feel free to share your choice of cart with Garrard 301 or 401.
And lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude to @fsonicsmith, @noromance @mdalton for the inspiration.
@dogberry - LD reference is available now. https://www.londondecca.com/ld-cartridges and you can email [email protected]. I purchased a SuperGold from Stewart about a year ago. Could not be happier. If the SG sounds this good, I cannot imagine what a reference sounds like. Also a good story about the Reference over at Decware. Steve Deckert was/is messing around with a Reference a few months ago and posted some great info/reviews about his experiences. |
I’m finding the new Lond0nDecca somewhat disappointing. The prices are off the charts compared to what JW was doing. The Super Gold retailed at $1900 and now it’s a thousand bucks more. They no longer offer the Paratrace service option on non-Reference models. Decapods seem to be gone. $150 up front to look at cartridges in for service. I’d like to see more transparency on the service costs. The Reference was always a $5k cartridge, LD upped it to a fair $6500 8 months ago and now it’s $8500 and the Jubilee has almost doubled to nearly $6k. I guess I’m just old school and haven’t moved with these expensive times. On reflection, I should be grateful that someone has picked up the task of keeping these amazing cartridges going. |
I placed my order of Model 4 phono, delivery estimate end of June. I am looking at some alternatives to Telefunken 12AX7 NOS to try it out. Do you or anyone else here tried Amperex Bugle Boy - ECC83 (Holland) or Tungsram (Hungry) in a phonostage? The Mullard’s you’ve tried in Model 4, were they ECC83 / CV4004, long plate (1950s-60s) production?
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I have not tried the bugle boy or tungsram but I might try and get a pair of the Bugle Boy’s or Some nice Brimar’s. The Mullard’s I have are 1950s halo getter long plates. I put them back in my DAC after listening to the Sovtek LPS for a few days and they sure do sound nice. They were $450.00 per pair but are now sold old at Brent Jesse but has other variants available. as you probably know he lists every tube available on his website which has good descriptions but I usually just email him and ask for advice which I may do shortly. let us know what you end up getting
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@lalitk I really think you can do better on the phono stage. You are running pretty a much state-of-the-art (within reason) turntable suite and feeding it into a basic phono amp (Softone #4). This is really compromising the analog end of things. |
