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Garrard 401Picture

I finally put the finishing touches on my Garrard 401 this afternoon. Bought it off of e-pay. Now all that is left is to mount the tonearms on the brass pods, mount the cartridges and listen.

In case the plinth looks familiar I took the basic idea from Jeff Day's article in 6Moons. However, I did make some changes regarding vibration control.

My version can also accommodate 3 arms which can be swapped in and out very quickly - all I need is a lot of brass tonearm pods. I have enough brass left to make 6 more pods. For my third brass pod I have an Teres Audio wood armboard with a Teres VTA adjuster on order. With the armboard mounted on a 1" shorter brass pod, I can swiftly swap in and out any arm with a central post as well as have VTA on-the-fly.

The worst part of asembling this was taking the motor apart to reoil the bronze bearings. It is easy once you know how, but as a person with zero mechanical aptitude it was challenging.

I can also see lots of tweaking ahead. Outboard power supply, removing eddy brake, vibration damping of spindle bearing, vibration control of mounting bolts, turntable mats, etc. However, I think I am just going to sit down and listen for a while.

In the photo you can see a little square tag in the lower leftand lower right corners of the name plate and in the 9 o'clock position on the metal center of the turntable mat. The protective plastic film applied at the factory is still on the nameplate and mat. The tag is to assist in pulling the film off. Do I really want to remove the protective film? Any thoughts, pro or con?

The URL below takes you to a photo of the plinth disassembled.





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Topic - Garrard 401Picture - rgordonpf 16:27:57 05/7/06 (11)


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