Garrard 301 - Project

@mdalton, @fsonicsmith, @noromance 

Thank you for the great insight on your journey and for sharing your collective experiences with Garrard 301 / 401. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to read! I did initiate the purchase of a Garrard 301 with full restoration, finished in Sable (black). The ETA is 4-6 weeks. 

As far plinth goes, I had the same vendor in mind on eBay as @elliottbnewcombjr linked above. Based on what I’ve learned here, I am going to query the plinth maker about the manufacturing process, materials and footers. I plan to experiment with the footers and eventually decouple TT with a SRA Isolation base atop my excellent core audio design rack. 

As far cart options, I am taking notes on all the recommendations so far. Three extra head shells are already in-house with Reed 3P tonearm :-) 

Hopefully, Garrard 301 ends being my end game TT!

Just as Damper and Body Materials used in Cartridges has evolved in the selection for a materials.

Materials used for structure in audio equipment has evolved as well, and it is easy to see where the industry is adopting it and not. Linn won't inform on their most recent TT being constructed with P'holz, it is an inhouse name for the material. As does Kaiser Speakers referring to the Bespoke Materials as Tank Wood.

There are most likely other Brands with a usage of it and a disguised name to protect their IP.

'Bounce Back' is a simplistic term, used when describing extremely Poor Dissipation and Damping, the Energies are not Damped or Dissipated, hence they are contained and in motion as further transferal, hence 'Bounce Back'.

In relation to the TT, being in contact with such a material, the likelihood/guarantee is that the Styli is to be receive energies from Bounce Back, resulting in a contaminated energy being sent to create the initial signal to be transferred for further stages of amplification, where the contamination is included in all stages until sound is produced.

Whether the end listener is able to detect the contamination in the produced sound will be open to debate, I have and do, when certain types of structure are being used.    

@lalitk 

+1 for Woodsong renovation work (I have a TD124).

VG results (for TD124) with "Governor" PSU made by Deco Audio in UK for rational cost: lower noise floor, greater impact.

I have VG results after milling -- using pillar drill-- a solid plinth of German "Permali" wood: twice density of baltic birch (similar if not same manufacturing principle of "Panzerholz"). Plinth stands on decoupling tripods.  Image of this posted on my system page. Material of modest cost - around 100GBP.

This set up sounds fast, detailed and richly musical. As others noted, slate may be less optimal. I have found wood somewhere in plinth or under, as support, gives more natural sound with less edge. YMMV.

And your method for arriving at a numerical damping factor with plinth materials, Pindac?

We also have to ask where is all this spurious energy coming from? Also keep in mind that European slate is different from Pennsylvania slate, just as PA slate is different from Vermont slate, etc. ( I’ve had SP10 mk2 plinths made of both. PA slate was better.) OMA proudly use PA slate and also natural hard woods from PA in their speakers.

Slate is layered such that its energy dissipation in the plane parallel to the layers would be very different from its energy absorption perpendicular to that plane. There you would probably get more “bounce back “. But does it matter? What spurious energy is attacking the surface perpendicular to the plane of the layers? In the end also, slate provides lots of dead mass, which I think is beneficial. Finally it’s impossible to resolve the question by back and forth discussion. I built my plinths 10-15 years ago, I’m satisfied, and I’m not starting over with plinths.

Typing on my bespoke cell phone made of densified wood.

What I have been trying to say, particularly with my Harbeth speaker enclosure analogy, is that in my very humble opinion trying to make a 301 sound "airy, transparent, neutral, fast" et al is trying to turn the 301 into something that it is not. Why would anyone take an Audi R8 and install a lift kit and all terrain tires on it? If you want airy, transparent, neutral, and fast, any number of current era TT designs deliver those qualities in spades.

The 301 as a result of its design has a more relaxed truth of timbre and tone character. The powerful motor coupled with original very light platter also gives it "snap" to transient's and a strong sense of propulsiveness (my spell check denies that as being a word), but without sacrificing the relaxed overall touch and tone. 

Why not play to the strengths of the design rather than ameliorate them as if to mimic a modern sophisticated belt drive or DD table? 

In my case I did, largely out of blind luck and intuition, substitute a heavy duty all- brass bearing assembly and the Steve Dobbs alloy with copper top platter. At one point I was using the Classic HiFi brass platter that weighs 12kgs, nearly 25 lbs. 

https://www.classichifi-shop.co.uk/product/brass-platter-20-mm-oversize/

I much prefer the sound of the Dobbs platter. The heavier platter eliminated all sense of excitement to the sound. How can this be, one might ask? It is rotating at the very same speed and with all that inertia it ought to sound every bit as authoritative. I have no answer. Except that maybe just maybe the resonance of the all brass platter bouncing back through the LP and back to the stylus does something adverse to lively sound. And maybe just maybe all that mass and inertia can not overcome stylus drag and it's effects whereas letting the powerful motor exert itself through a relatively light platter overcomes stylus drag. 

And yet another factor is the inherent added friction of a very heavy platter on the bearing assembly. 

All any of us can do with the 301 is experiment. If a slate plinth mated with the 301 sounds the way you want it to sound I can not argue that you have made a bad choice.