Garrard 401/301 Tips and Tricks

[IslandPink]

Hi All,

Was tempted just to add comments onto Greg's 401 Plinth thread, but decided ( marginally ) this could be a more general discussion about Garrard issues, covering plinths, arm-mounting variations, motor and suspension experiments, etc .

Last night I made a small alteration to one area I've found to be critical .
On the heavy plinths, bolting the arm direct to the wood ( or whatever ) can sound bad, due ( I think ) to the energy from the cartridge travelling down the arm and pillar , then reflecting back up , out of phase, destroying mid and treble subtlety .

I had a big improvement with my Origin Live 'Illustrious' arm , by spacing the mounting collar ( aluminium ) away from the plinth top with three small fibre washers , and also putting rubber grommets under the heads of the mounting screws for this collar ( underneath ) to cushion any vibration . This seemed to work very well ,and improved the top end a lot, giving much more tonality and space .

It's still not top-notch in these aspects, so I bought some big polythene washers while at B&Q at the weekend . Last night I fitted one of these under the arm mounting collar , instead of the fibre washers. The same grommets were used underneath under the screw heads .
The result seems subtly different . I think there may be overall a slight improvement - bass tonality a little better, and perhaps less vocal sibilance . On the other hand , there may be a slightly more 'closed-in' tonality . I'm not sure yet, so I'll report back later. It wasn't a decisive change, so I could recommend either approach .

Clive has tried some other options, I believe .

Mark