Loricraft Garrard 301 to Dobbins Sp10 Mk3 - What can I expect ?

@pani what did you settle on, Garrard 301 or Sp10 mk3?  How do you describe their differences?

@ljgm, I preferred the 301.

Before talking about 301, I will talk about the 3 technics I had the fortunate opportunity to try. 1200G, Sp10 Mk2, Sp10Mk3.

All of them sound surprisingly similar! All of them had similar flow of music, similar tonality, similar feel/PRAT, similar quietness. 

1200G - Very detailed and clean sound. Sounded very complete with its own plinth. I had the special analog PSU from Time-Step. 

Sp10 Mk2 - Never build a complete plinth for it because I didnt know if I would keep it. I used it as a naked player with some good isolation footers. It sounded grander and a bit warmer than 1200G. 

Sp10 Mk3 - I had the Steve Dobbins version, with his amazingly inert heavy plinth. It was supplied with Stillpoint footers. PSU had all the old caps replaced with new Panasonic ones. Overall a mint piece.
It had everything that the smaller brothers had but it also had the explosive dynamics that approached the Garrard. It was more colorful than the other 2 technics tables. I tried with and without stillpoints. While with stillpoints sounded quieter and tighter, I preferred the slightly noisy but more natural sound with a regular steel cone.

Finally the Garrard 301: None of the Technics had the flow and emotion of 301. They all exhibited a certain electronically controlled, tight sound. Everything was just forced to put in place with the Technics. The flamboyance and natural presence, the aura was not just there. Technics was academic while Garrard was a flowing stream of music. It is not quiet but it makes you sing along. All the arguments around how much cleaner and more transparent a window Technics presents goes out of the window when you find yourself simply nodding and bobbing your head with the garrard. Its because, 301 was telling you more about the mood of the song, the tension of the band. 

It was a very educating experience. I am not a DD guy. 

You might want to audition a Kenwood L07D, before you conclude you don’t like DD. Like other turntable drive systems, not all DD turntables exhibit the same SQ coloration, or lack thereof. Because you’re really saying here that you prefer a certain coloration of the 301. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Hi lewm, I like the 301, Lenco L75, EMT 930, Rega, Nottingham Analogue, Dr.Feickert, Bergmann (latest model), Avid, Well setup LP12 and many more record players. All of them sound different but none of them exhibit the kind of electronically controlled flow I hear from Technics or even the EMT DDs. Whether Kenwood would cure it, I dont know. I will wait for a time when I get to hear it.

Having said that, I would agree that Garrard is not tonally studio neutral. My 301 is highly updated with some good tweaks. Yet it is not dead neutral. Lenco is better in that aspect. 

There are families of DD turntables, just as there are families of belt-drive and idler-drive types.  You auditioned only one "brand": Technics.  First of all, I find it hard to believe that you didn't hear substantial differences between the 1200G and the other two and between the Mk3-based Dobbins turntable and the Mk2 with no plinth.  The 1200G uses a coreless motor, which makes it fundamentally different from its forebears.  The Mk3 in any iteration should blow away the Mk2, let alone a Mk2 with no plinth.  I easily heard big differences between Mk2 and Mk3 in similar slate plinths, in my system. However, it's possible that all 3 take the Technics approach to servo control, which is very tight.  I don't like to think so, but perhaps you are "hearing" that tight control of platter speed that results.  There are other DD's with coreless motors and "looser" servo feedback mechanisms, like the Kenwood and maybe the Victor TT101 (which would have to be re-plinthed or the plinth modified) that you might find more like your 301, but better.  And there's also the Luxman PD444 and the Yamaha GT2000X.  So, you have DD's with iron core motors vs coreless motors, DD's with heavy vs light platters, and DD's with varying tightness of the servo control mechanism.  Each of these design choices makes a difference to SQ.  Not to mention the effects of plinth, tonearm, cartridge.  Generalizations are hazardous, because they make you stop thinking.