Turntable

[RobinKidderminster]

Glad u say horrible when new. Mine is great now its old.
More seriously I thought as a budget deck it was well thought of and much better than sp25. The 100sb even better. Still going to dust off mine soon.

 

[drummerman]

No worries, I don't expect to much from the Garrard but we'll see ...

regards

 

[drummerman]

Wow, I seem to have problems with the forum at the moment; Often it doesn't respond and when it does ... its very, very slow. Perhaps just my end ... ?

Anyways, about the turntables. Here is a little bit more to bore you lot to death;

The Thorens looks and sounds gorgeous. Engaging, rythmical and very clear with some Pat Metheny. Pitch is stable. Thats before I did any servicing which will be done after the Garrard.

Where am I with it ... ; A nice project for a first turntable, I dont think I could have picked something more mechanicaly complicated but thats fine. Got stuck in and disassembled the entire linkage, almost every part. A lot of it was stuck and didn't move, the old garrard grease was set solid in places hence the previous owner just having used manual. There was grease in places which there shouldnt be any ... rectified. All cleaned with isopropyl and lubed where necessary. - Everything has been properly aligned and now moves nicely and smooth, lovely. This bit alone took a good 4 hours. The auto play engages and the arm moves to where it should be. I haven't played anything yet on it though so we'll see. I'm confident it'll be fine.

Ordered a new belt of the bay (well, actually two which somebody ordered in error) and as luck would have it, the seller lives in the same town, even better.

Cleaned the platter bearing, a simple inverted ball. It looks fine as does the sleeve and top. There is absolutely no sideward play or oscillation. Re-lubed with a little mobil1 0-40 and the platter spins silently and absolutely evenly for about 2 1/2 minutes. The bottom O-ring has deteriated so I am awaiting some new ones. Once fitted the bearing will hold a small reservoir of oil and should do service for years to come.

Disassembled the motor. A nice Synchrolab Model II which apparently has quite a good reputation. Its a simple but well built motor. Cleaned it out with isoprop and re-lubed the bottom/top bearings. - Cleaned the pulley back to its original colour and took the shine of the drive part with ultra fine wet sandpaper followed by a good clean with alcohol. The motor now looks like new and is whisper quiet. I then cleaned the rubber suspension grommets and used some silicon to make them pliable again. - I further damped the motor by isolating the plate which holds the motor and is the interface with the suspension grommets with sorbothane on both sides where the screws drive through the motor and connect to the back plate. - There is no vibration I could feel going to the top-plate of the turntable anymore. There was little if any before but everything helps.

What next? I will pay attention to the arm, including bearings. I dont expect any surprises as there is no play and the arm moves smoothly in all directions. Still, has to be done.

Next will be a trial run.

All the basics are there for a good turntable; Good motor, nice arm (in some ways forward thinking, in others a bit compromised but I'll work around that).

The triangular arm 'tube' is in some ways 'forward thinking, albeit 50 years ago. It will by design be less inclined to ringing and vibration. There is a reason why tubular structures ring very well ... . The bearings seem good quality, they survived a few decades with no play.

The platter is a good weight without risking to destroy the bearing/sleeve and it seems true/well machined. It rings like I would imagine most metal platters do but that is rectifiable and relatively easy to do.

So, there you go. An old lady with hopefully a new lease of life.

More to come

regards

 

[drummerman]

This is more like talking to myself ... an absolute pleasure.

Today I've started the old girl up in anger for the first time. All greased up with a nice new tight belt, she's behaving like all good pensioners should ... steady and quiet.

The suspended motor is both torquey and totally silent, bringing the platter up to speed in less than a rotation with help of the new belt.

The exercise so far has been to bring the Garrard back to its intended mechanical condition, including the auto function. That has been achieved, almost; Auto start will lift and place the arm at the beginning of the record most of the time but it has a tendency to place it to close to the edge with the result that on a couple of times the arm/cartridge slipped of the edge. Some adjustment needed and I have to look at that. Auto return and switch off are now faultless.

I dont have a strobe disc for the Garrard but will print one tomorrow. However, playing a track with consistent synth levels there was no audible speed variations whatsoever. Good.

Bearing in mind that nothing has been properly set up on this TT yet (I roughly set tracking force at 1.5g for the Sure MJ75EJ, thats it) the Garrard sounds better than I expected after reading some of the comments on here but there's scope for improvement. Mids are good, highs are there and present with no shouting or grating and the Soundstage is decent.. Surface noise is a little higher than with the Thorens and it is rythmically slightly less on the ball.

The biggest issue, surpisingly after reading some reviews of both the cartridge and the somewhat related Zero 100SB and 25's is a lack of bass and bass punch. There in particular it lags, at the moment at least, behind the 115. - I guess a cartridge swap would shed some light on this but we're not quite there.

I will start setting up properly once the Auto Start issue is solved. - The weak bass could be the cartridge, cabling (I used the crappy 50pence interconnect that came with it ... easily changed as the Garrard has RCA's or even tonearm/headshell wiring.

All this will be attacked next. Talking of headshell ... this particular garrard uses a sliding mechanism for the cartridge. Whilst convenient it is not ideal and I have an idea for it.

All good fun so far

regards

 

[RobinKidderminster]

We all ears ....

 

[jerry klinger]

Apparently only 301 and 401's are worth considering.

Aye thats the way to go. So thee best put one of yer kidneys up for sale on Gumtree to finance a half decent 301/401 chassis. Then your left leg for a slate plinth etc etc.

Dont bury yourself in blurb at the min mate ,tis a ruddy minefield if you are green behind the ears.

If you're new to turntables (and incidentally, shouldn't this thread be in another place?), the last thing you want is someone telling you to buy a Garrard 401. Massive cost and effort, overpriced and overrated in my 45 + years experience of listening to t/ts.

Far better to get a cheaper Rega, or even better in my view, a second-hand Thorens. There are plenty of integrated TD160s around, and when fully sorted they sound superb.

Incidentally your Shure cartridge is OK, just needs a new stylus probably. Try Jico from Japan.

 

[drummerman]

Thanks.

Of course I wouldn't buy a 301/401. I have all of 5 records now

To be honest I am more interested in the engineering part of these turntables but have to say both sound good, The Thorens 115 is better so my self imposed challenge is to bring the Garrard up to level (plus I love the look of it).

I have just been in contact with an american ebay outlet which apparently sells Jico replacements (non SAS). I believe Pfannenstiel is preferable to the Mexican copies too. May even put a Rega Carbon on it.

Regards

 

[chebby]

May even put a Rega Carbon on it.

Regards

Or save £8 and put the Audio Technica AT91 on it instead. (Same cartridge without Rega badge.)

Rega Carbon.

AT91.

 

[drummerman]

Yes, I did notice that but thanks chebby.

Yesterday, late at night, I looked at the Shure stylus of the Garrard and noticed it was bent sidewards by approx 15-20 degrees. Careful manipulation did not rectify it. Anything more hamfisted would probably break the stylus but I have more reason to replace it now. Previous mileage of the needle is not known but it was an original Shure with slim, elliptical cantilever a little bit of research showed.

Question now is do I replace it with good quality (Swiss made pfannenstiel) which is equal in price to the AT you've suggested or get the AT?

Being a newby with all vinyl I have no reference on which to judge. All I can say is that I did like the short time the Garrard was playing with the Shure (not properly set up) other than weak bass. That could have been down to misalignment as well as a damaged/bent cantilever, dunno. Tracking was absolutely fine with little end of record distortion and no skipping.

This is interesting stuff.

regards

 

[drummerman]

Story continues ... I have ordered a Pfanstiehl Switzerland replacement stylus for the shure. There are conflicting information about this one (as are there for any styli, even Jico ones and I certainly can't afford an SAS).

So, with the garrard awaiting the stylus arrival I turned my attention to the Thorens. I have decided to leave the arm alone. What a beautiful piece of engineering it is too; high precision, close tolerance totally shock proof jewel bearings and magnetic anti skate, It moves/floates without any friction and is, according to the service manual, 'maintenance free'. - As long as I dont experience any problems, it will be left as is apart perhaps from a silicon f damping paddle but that is a project for another time.

The table has an interesting 'floating' subchassis. Thorens calls it 'orthodirectional' or something like that. Instead of the conventional, spiral vertically wound springs often used (as in the Garrard and many others) this one has four suspension pots which involve horizontal, flat springs. Adjustable brass legs extend through these. Near the bottom of these are nylon grommets which can be separated to hold a high density foam disk to control side ward movement and oscillation/bounce.

These foam discs where perished when I opened the pods. I noticed that all wasn't probably wasn't as it is supposed to be when the subchassis 'floated' to easily. Whilst impressive to play with it was surely subject to to much movement. - Long story short, new foam was cut into shape, the pods and assembly cleaned and it now functions as intended.

Interestingly, having read an interesting article about the new AVID decks and the thought behind their suspensions I have a modification in mind which should address the problems associated with 'omni-directional' suspensions without taking away the good bits. Details to follow.

On to the motor, a relatively small sized DC unit, at least compared to the large synchrolab of the Garrard. It ran reasonably smooth though there was a very faint ticking noise, audible when placing the ear next to the motor itself only. Applying just a minute amount of sideward pressure to the spindle silenced it. I assume that having been mounted in the same position for years has resulted in slightly uneven wear, minute at worst. Lubricating the motor and turning it around on its three rubber suspended independent mounting point by 120 degrees has solved the issue completely. With the belt tension applied it now runs completely silent and smooth.

The main bearing of sintered self lubricating type is, according to the manual, maintenance free for many thousands of hours. Again, because of its age, I decided to thoroughly clean it out and check for wear and tolerance. No problems. There was no platter oscillation/play and the bearing is still very tight. - In goes the same Mobil 0-40 oil as in the garrard ... . Spins for minutes on end with no problems but then had the foresight of reading up about this particular type of bearing and learned that using oils such as mine, with detergents can actually, over long periods of time cause some damage by blocking the the poreous, sintered bearing. - A quick look at the service manual recommends special sintered bearing oil so I'll have to rectify that.

The fun continues

regards

Here's a link to some quickly scrambled photos taken with a phone, pls disregard bad quality

http://www.mediafire.com/index.php#y58wo5qn2qh7k