Is a Garrard 401 or 301 "accurate"??

I owned and used a Garrard 401 which received a Martin Bastin Overhaul inclusive of his Modified Platter Bearing for many years, it was used with a SME IV for a proportion of its life and was mounted in a Substantial Monolith Granite Plinth weighing in at 9 Stone.

The Bass Authority you are referring to was dominatingly present in my set up, it was able to underwhelms the Mid's, Upper Mid's and Highs.

The Plinth and Tonearm were introduced to attempt to control the coherence across the frequency range, but in fairness even though there was an improvement, the Bass remained the Authority throughout most replays.

This changed though, but not as part of my ownership, but when it was with a friend and its new owner.

I bought in a Nigel Speed Controller that was designed able to work with Lenco's and Garrards. The NSC was used on my PTP Solid Nine and it cleaned up the Bass Authority on this one very well and the Bass become much less bloomed, with a tighter note and faster decay. This really allowed the upper frequencies to project.

The NSC was used on the Garrard owed by a friend and he was so impressed he built one for his Garrard and Lenco's 

Over a period of time, a few other friends acquired Lenco based TT's to be second/third TT's and a opportunity became available to loan a Long Dog Audio Quartz Locked Speed Controller, this was used as a comparison to my NSC and My friends NSC design, at three different properties on Lenco's and Garrards, all with different Tonearm > Cartridges, the LDA was the most impressive in use by a large margin.

The use of this tightens the bass further and introduces a noticeable fast decay, where the Mid's and Highs are much further projected.

I heartily encourage a home trial of a Speed Controller on a Garrard or Lenco Idler Drive TT.

The 301 was the late Art Dudley's favorite TT. He preferred it over his Linn Sondek!

Thorens TD-124 MKI or MKII 

The shop I mentioned above that puts idler tables into ultra high end systems likes the Thorens 124 the most for sound quality. Their tech who refurbishes and sets up tables likes the Garrard for its simpler design that makes maintenance and adjustment easier.  I like both brands from what I hear.

I too have a slate plinthed rebuilt 401 with aftermarket idler (Artisan Fidelity), platter (PAC), and SPH bearing. I don’t have a power supply. One inexpensive tweak that really helped open up the mids/highs was to add 3 x Nobsound springs as feet. Another was to use a "rack" of concrete blocks. See my system under my profile.