Garrard 401 or Thorens 125

@lewm 

how to dramatically reduce the mechanical noise mostly having to do with plinth building.  The OEM plinth did not do it

I am unaware of an OEM plinth for the Garrard 301?  They did come with a paper template so you could make a mounting board, and a spring set to suspend the board.

I remember as a teenager designing a console to accommodate the Garrard.  By the time the Garrard was handed down to me, it had acquired a plinth made by SME.  Superficially, this has a nice dustcover but the base is pretty flimsy - the bottom is a thin sheet of hardboard.

I agree about the importance of a good plinth.  There seem to be two schools of thought.  Leave the underside as open as possible to let resonances escape, or fill up as much volume underneath as possible to absorb resonances.  I have gone down the latter path.  The SME plinth remains, but it is totally disconnected from the functional plinth hidden inside!

Personally, I would not describe the Garrard as clunky, except that the purely mechanical controls have an old-worlde industrial feel - very positive in action..

@joeycastillo 

just wondering what the reasons are so i can get a better perspective

I had exactly the same curiosity, and also a handed-down Garrard 301.  I was astonished at how much these seem to fetch, and had not really been into vinyl since CDs came out - I mainly listen to classical music.

Helpful posts from @lewm and upgradeitis set in. Several thousand dollars later I had a system that played vinyl at a level of enjoyment roughly equivalent to CDs.

Then I went to a speaker demonstration where the source was a Holbo tangential air-bearing system.  So now I have two turntables and no money, but sound that might surpass SACD quality in enjoyment!

@redclamchowder 

Sorry, I've just remembered that there is one component of my Garrard that has deteriorated - the original rubber mat!  It is a bit frayed round the spindle hole.  A mat is needed to control resonances in the heavy aluminium platter in my opinion.

I replaced it with The Funk Firm's Achromat platter mat.

Since buying what is left of Garrard's turntable business, SME has spent a lot of effort replicating the original rubber mat. Frustratingly, they will only sell it in conjunction with their NOS units, which list for 10s of thousands.  I don't think they plan to sell more than 2 of these a month.

It is interesting to me that people develop very strong preferences and opinions based on their preferred drive for turntables.  I suppose I am somewhat of an outlier in that I like them all if properly executed.  In my opinion the company that has brought the idler drive to the highest level of performance is VPI.  I guess if I had to pick one, though, for me in today's world it would probably be DD for their versatility and practicality, although as I key this I am listening to my oldest and perhaps dearest, a VPI HW19 belt drive.  Next to it sits a Technics SL1200 GAE and next to it sits a Mitsubishi LT-22, both DD. 

@richardbrand  and others who gave their perspective

THANK YOU. I was wondering why older technologies TT where preferred as to new tech TT. 

Hmm, this seemed to perk my interest. I think I will try to dive more into this