Woodsong Garrard 301, Artisan Fidelity 301, Shindo 301, SME 301, or etc.?

mglik

Thanks for posting this thread. Please post your system, so I can see pics of your Garrard.

I have a modified Garrard 301 in a Woodsong plinth as well. I am not a diy guy, but would love to hear a 301 with all of the mods made by @dover

My 301 was restored by Audio Grail. It also has an Audiosilente idler wheel, Harban eddy brake, and a Shindo platter/bearing. It is on Nordost SortFut. It came on Stillpoints, but taller feet due to the size of the Shindo bearing.

@scar972 Great looking room and turntables!

@pcosta The EMT is a big time audiophile qualifier.

Jim Perry

@jperry Thank you. I really like your Garrard 301, your Ikeda tonearm is a beauty and on my list when the time comes.

@bukanona
Yes the CTC rod is a good compromise - less friction and inherently more stability than a ball. Good luck with the motor switching mod, as you say it is not hard.

@jperry 

would love to hear a 301 with all of the mods made by @dover 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.
My 301 is not my main reference table, but it handily disposed of a Platine Verdier which I had as a second turntable ( for 78's and mucking around with arms/cartridges etc ). It wiped the Verdier and a Micro Seiki for timing and coherence and digs just as deep in terms of resolution.

Your 301 looks great. Audio Grail, Woodsong, & Artisan Fidelity all do beautiful work. The most important thing they do is actually the motor rebuild - it is not possible to relube the bottom bearing in the motor without dismantling it. After I rebuilt my motor with new bushes and truing everything up, not only was the noise reduced considerably, but it actually runs much cooler.

I run a Fidelity Research FR64S/B60 on it which seems very synergistic so I'm assuming your Ikeda would be great. Most of my audio visitors are shocked by my 301 ( in a good way ) when they hear it. 

@scar972 

I have also replinthed and tweaked a 401 for one of my listening buddies - starting with an Audio Grail 401 I built a custom plinth from engineered stone, did the power switch mod, and a few other tweaks - 11kg brass platter and new bearing, artisan fidelity idler wheel.

On that we've run a Helius Omega, Moersch DP8 and now a Kuzma 4Point11. The Kuzma 4Point is producing excellent results on the 401 with Kuzma CAR50 & Van Den Hul Colibri.

So thus far my 2 favourite arms for the Garrards are the FR64S & Kuzma 4Point. ( I also have Naim Aro/Dynavector 501/Eminent Technology ET2 and a few others kicking around for comparison ).

Chris Harban advised me not to switch to a much heavier platter.
That the 301 motor was not designed to move that much weight.
Although it does seem like a heavier platter would add thrust and a stronger tone. And the available heavy copper or brass platters are $1-2K. Does anyone have experience changing from a lighter to heavier platter?

A huge upgrade to my TT rig was putting it on a SRA VR platform. As always, never imagined there could be better SQ but I just changed from the entry level VR to the mid line Ohio Class.
Wow, what a difference! Why Ohio Class? Because SRA makes vibration control for nuclear submarines. Much more $ than a heavy platter but waaay worth it.