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Garrard 301 - Project

I have been contemplating for a while which turntable to pursue given so many choices. Every time I look around, I just can’t help drooling over a fully restored Garrard 301 or 401. Aside from being an idler-drive, I keep reading and hearing about their unique ability to reproduce music with its sense of drive and impact thus making them very desirable to own. And with available meticulous restoration services and gorgeous plinth options, what’s not to like, right!

Would you please share your experience, good and pitfalls (if any) with a restored Garrard 301 to avoid before I go down this path.

And what about the IEC inlet and power cord, would they be of any significance. My two choices would be Furutech FI-09 NCF or FI-06 (G) inlets.

I have already purchased a Reed 3P Cocobolo 10.5” with Finewire C37+Cryo tonearm/interconnect phono cable with KLEI RCA plugs option.

Still exploring Cart Options, so please feel free to share your choice of cart with Garrard 301 or 401.

And lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude to @fsonicsmith, @noromance ​​​​@mdalton for the inspiration.

lalitk
lalitk's avatar
lalitk OP
5,796 posts
 

How about Count Basie…my personal favorites, 88 Basie Street and Farmer’s Market Barbecue. 

lewm
13,768 posts
 

Those are Pablo recordings. Very high quality but small group recordings made during the twilight of Basie’s career as a big band leader. His big band stuff is on lesser labels, like Roulette. Try Count Basie and Joe Williams, on Verve.

noromance's avatar
noromance
10,190 posts
 

I’m a fan of the Pablo Basie records: The Gifted Ones, Basie & Dizzy Gillespie, The 3 Basie Jams, Basie & Zoot Sims. I’ve a bunch of his big band work but the later ones above are just wonderful. 
Speaking of Joe Williams, his A Man Ain’t Supposed to Cry album is an outstanding vocal work. A must have.

lalitk's avatar
lalitk OP
5,796 posts
 

@noromance 

Thanks…Joe Williams shares some stylistic elements with Nat King Cole. Another personal favorite of mine is Johnny Hartman…there’s not a lot of recorded material, but what exists is pure gold.

lewm
13,768 posts
 

Joe Williams was wonderful but not at all like Nat King Cole, who was also wonderful, IMO of course.  To begin with, the two sang in different vocal ranges.  Joe was a baritone and sang a lot of blues tunes, some of them quite obscure. His improvisations were unpredictable at times. Nat was a tenor.  He was also an accomplished jazz pianist and accompanied himself on his earliest recordings, but his work was very mainstream for his time.  He took fewer chances than Williams. Hartman was in my opinion the greatest for purity of tone, his work is more in between Nat and Joe, in his choice of material. I think I have all of Hartman's recordings. I wrote in another thread that my go to LP for comparing systems and evaluating upgrades is Hartman's "Easy Living". Human voice is, for me, a good constant.

Pablo recordings were typically of very high quality in terms of SQ.  My only quibble is that they came along more or less after many of the great artists on that label had reached and passed their peak capability. Basie and Ellington when they no longer had a stable big band to lead.  Ella when she had really lost that purity of tone for which she is revered.  Sarah Vaughn was still in good voice when she recorded for Pablo; that is one exception. Joe Pass and Milt Jackson are two others. This is not to say that those Pablo LPs are not anyways quite enjoyable.

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