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Hi Guys,I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing some pics of my new Garrard setup. The motor assembly is the cream oil-bearing version that I bought off eBay. The arm is an Origin Live Silver with a Denon 103 cartridge mounted on it. The arm rests in one of Pete Riggle's Vertical Tracking Angle on the Fly (VTAF) adjusters. The plinth design is by Terry Cain of Cain & Cain Audio who is known for his gorgeous hand-made double horn speakers.
The light colored wood is all solid maple, and the dark wood is solid walnut. The armboard is combination of walnut and maple with a hand hammered brass covering on the top plate. The brass leveling devices are onion shaped like the domes you see on Russian churches and rest in little indentations you see in the inverted brass discs.
I haven't put it on a scale yet, but the whole assembly weighs in around 70 pounds I'm guessing. The plinth has some interesting features. The base of the plinth is leveled to level the armboard which is is decoupled from the Garrard motor assembly. The solid maple upper plate with the motor assembly is leveled separtely and is decoupled from the armboard and the lower base.
The design is much more beautiful than the photos suggest. In low light listening when the walnut uprights fade into the low light there is a surrealistic effect of the upper plinth and motor assembly floating unsuspended in the air - very cool looking!
The best part is how it sounds - stunning!Enjoy!
Follow Ups:
Sweet! I have got to visit some of my fellow Washington audio nuts one of these days (I grew up near the Tri-Cities and now live in the Moscow/Pullman area). When is the second 6 moons article going to be completed???I have a Russco rim drive on the shelf waiting for restoration and this thread is inspiring. I would really like to hear more about your final plinth before I start on mine...
Hi Ed,I did my masters and doctoral work at WSU, so you're in my old stomping grounds. You'll have to come down to the TC for an oddio visit one of these days. I'm not sure about the exact date for the next article in The Garrard Project series, but I suspect it will be February-ish.
Cheers,
Great to see idler-wheel drives having their day in court once again, great job on the coverage, great idea. Beautiful job on the plinth too. Warms the cockles of my heart.Signed,
Johnnantais
"Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot" thread on AudiogonP.S. Perhaps you'll try the Lenco thing some day as well, though now you've got a great sounding and great-looking idler-wheel drive going, the point is perhaps moot.
nt
nt
"So many tubes, so little time..."
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Interesting plinth design. We Lenco loonies like to propagate heavy plinths made out of birch multiply, MDF layers whatever. This thing has the arm decoupled from the motor unit, interesting. How quiet is it? No rumble or groove noise? I read a story on a website about restoring a 301, is this the same one?
I have an RB300/DL103 on my modded Lenco L78, awesome combo. Those old idler wheel drive TT are unbeatable in PRAT and bass response. Nice "guitfiddles" BTW...
I have heard lots of stories about 301 motor vibes and woes, but TC's approach has resulted in a dead quiet design. I can neither feel or hear anything with my ear pressed up against the top of maple plinth with the platter spinning, but TC's got some measurement gear and we're going to measure all the particulars before long to find out what the numbers are.This 301 project is the one I've been chronicling for the 6Moons readers, which may be the one you've read earlier. The second installment with all the gory details will be coming before too long ...
First off, very cool. Secondly, have you looked into a wein bridge occilator? This is the one big tweak that was not mentioned in the article. Just curious, thank.
The 301's motor is an AC shaded pole running at 1500 rpm. It has two big good points - high rotational inertia and high speed, both of which make it a very effective flywheel.It has several big bad points - it's mechanically noisy, electrically noisy (AC supply), it has poor speed control and it has less startup torque than run torque.
The wien bridge oscillator fixes only one of the bad points - the speed control.
Try the Mark Kelly Patent Universal Test for Motor Noise - take the motor out of the chassis and place it on an unstrung guitar between the bridge and the soundhole. Run the motor at normal speed and listen to it.
1 vibrates as the table is running. This is not something that would run silently on the top of a guitar.In fact, the speed stability of both my Garrards is as flawless as I could hope for. I can set the speed and it will still be spot on a couple of weeks later. We have very clean power here in my part of NYC. It really helped that my building was entirely rewired a few years ago. I remember that it had the effect of a big expensive tweak.
I was only interested in the wein bridge occilator for its ability to take the eddy current brake out of operation. I have heard that this dose indeed reduce motor noise when the speed is regulated by something other then a magnetic break.
BTW, a really big improvement in my 30l happened almost by accident. The main bearing gasket started to leak, so I went to the hardware store to see if I could buy paper gasket material. They only had rubber sheets and in a l/i6" thickness. I figured I would give it a try. I cut it out in the shape of the original paper gasket, but rather than cutting out the center hole, I mahined a depression which was about as deep as the original gasket was thick, so the thrust bearing now sits on a rubber pad.
This was just a temporary fix, but I will never change it. That is, until I can afford the Shindo mods.
I leave the brake fully on but I have detached the adjustment which I believe to be the cause of the problems others report with the brake.As long as the brake disc is true the brake has a beneficial effect on vibration by absorbing some of the excess energy from the motor.
All this will shortly be moot as I'm going to replace the motor next.
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The drive is about 50% finished but I think I've solved all the difficult bits. The last bit fell into place last night when I worked out how to keep the three phases at equal amplitude. It's now just a matter of interfacing with the motor - I'll use solid state for now, a custom three phase transformer is out of reach.I have ordered a motor from Maxon but I think I will need to change out the bearings - the machine shop that does my (real work) R&D machining should be able to do this and machine up a new drive pulley.
Which Maxon motor will you use? Please let me know how the sound compares to the stock Garrard motor.Many thanks,
The 24V one without the hall effect sensors (i don't need them as I'm not using rotational feedback). I haven't received it yet so I don't know if I have to replace the bearings.
The speed from this stock unit is exemplary. Better than my AR by a good bit. From the way it's built it's no wonder. Half the record lathes out there cutting were made to the same standards around the same time. I plan on measuring the Teres and 301's noise for comparison. I pretty much know what I'll find but I thought I would hear it too.Hey! Your Garrard 301 grease bearing with variable speed EL34 power supply, DIY 300mm arm, Grace F9E sounds positively dreamy. I have an F9e I wish was not slightly bent.
Listening to a Teres/Triplanar most of the time, I desprately wanted to hear something that would step on the music in the 301. I heard the difference going to battery from ac on the Teres. Going from Teres to 301 just puts more fun in the presentation. All I get on the machine from Jeff's Fi/Duos is a whole gob of music. With all the pork fat I expect from good analog.
I noticed over at your website that your Teres is using the solid acrylic platter. I recently upgraded my acrylic platter to the shot loaded acrylic platter. I guess that transforms my 135 into a 145. I think the difference gained in this upgrade would be exactly what is needed in a Teres before making any comparison to a rim-drive table like the 301.The shot loaded platter upgrade is so good that it has me believing this this is the 'correct' platter and the solid acrylic platter is the 'wrong' platter. The improvements were immediately obvious in the pace/toe-tapping qualities. Also immediately a more authoritive low frequency makes its presence known. More subtle improvements came in soundstage and imaging with stronger, more believeable (palpable), imaging.
I don't think it would be fair to compare any Teres to a good rim-drive table without the heavier Teres platter installed. So if you are feeling like throwing rocks at that Teres, take heart. More and better is available.
-Steve
So if you are feeling like throwing rocks at that Teres, take heart. More and better is available.Would not dream of throwing rocks. I have heard all the Teres platters. The acrylic sounds just fine and is the best looking IMHO. Not spending any more $ on TT's unless they are vintage rim drive.
If you get constant spped from a stock 301 you must have a much more conscientious utility provider than mine - 20% variation in line voltage is not unknown around here.The speed of the stock Garrard is voltage dependent and cannot be made voltage independent. Also the motor has too much run torque so the extra energy creates extra noise. If you lower the voltage to reduce run torque you end up on a shallower section of the speed / voltage curve so the speed variation becomes worse and you lose even more start-up torque.
I very much doubt that cutting lathes used shaded pole motors - much more likely to use a three phase motor which is the best solution all round. Anyone know the definitve answer?
BTW I changed the EL34s to KT88s. I am currently in silence as I bent the cantilever on my F9E. I have just spent the money I was going to use for a retip on my motor experiments so I'll have to wait a while longer.
Low voltage 301 operation using a light bulb: Somewhere on the web there is a nice article on 301 tweaks etc. in which using a light bulb in series to drop the motor voltage from 115 down to the mid eighties is touted. Reported to quieten the background. Softly glowing light bulb would be cool. Low cost. Or . . . got a variac? Worth a try using a rat-shack voltmeter.
My oscillator has variable output voltage so I can choose any combination of supply frequency / voltage / brake load I want.What I think sounds best is brake full on, voltage down fairly low (about 100V) and frequency set to give correct speed.
I am hoping to replace the motor soon so it won't be a problem any more.
We're only 25 mile from Hanford. And the most potent grid on the planet. Puget Power's Cascade mountain generating system. Got yer Grand Coulee dam 90 miles to the north, your Ice Harbour dam 35 miles east, heck we're surrounded by dams. Whoa, check the old electric bill, cheap too, and enough for California to buy at top dollar. That is till Washington the DC makes us pay like the rest of the US. Sags, not more that 1% ever. Yep, the 301 made piano sound tinkle jez right.
That's amazing.Victoria's electricity is derived from disgustingly greenhouse unfriendly brown coal generation plants and most of the state's industry is between me and the generators.
Plus there are several large industrial users on the same line here, so we get really bad power.
I'm aware of the extensive use of brown coal in Victoria (Yalourn springs to mind), but don't you get electricity from the Snowy?
Haven't checked into a WBO yet, sounds like it's something I should follow up on. Thanks for the suggestion.
Regarding the VTAF(tm, pronounced "Vee-Taff," "VTA Adjustment on the Fly" . . . looks great with the OL Silver on the Cain and Cain plinth. Typical Cain and Cain, creative design, outstanding craftsmanship. Thanks for the exposure! Pete Riggle, VTAF(tm) manufacturer. Season's greetings to all.
Love that awesome VTAF cool dude! Man this vinyl rig just blows me away. I was up late last night listening and the amount of detail, PRAT, soundstaging et al, and effortless musicality had me mesmerized. I love my tube Audio Logic DAC, but I have to say the Garrard project rig is at a whole different level - amazing! Digital can sound good if you don't listen to vinyl, but man this thing is in a whole different realm. Back to a cup of Joe and the music ...
I've just installed the VTAF on a VPI jr. with an Origin Live 250 and have come to the conclusion that it's one of the best tweaks or mods I've ever done to a turntable/arm. Regardless of the VTA adjustment (it's basically set where it was), I'm convinced the actual mount has contributed to my sound the most. It's more open, there's more air with a blacker background, and dynamics and "pace" are outstanding. The depth of the image is hard to believe and I'm using 30 year old modified Large Advents!
I'm noticing the same thing, the VTAF's way cool. Old Advents eh? Awesome!
And I'm REALLY jealous!
Your 10y's red wine and cello lps await. Bring Joshee.
When you live in Siberia like I do you have to come up with your own fun cuz it sure doesn't exist in the everyday culture. ;-) I'm a lucky cat to have a cool group of cats like Bill, Pete, Terry & Leslie, and bro Stephaen to play audio games with, and not a day goes by that I'm not thankful for the good fortune and good times.
Ivan! You are right on about too much fun in SE Washington. The key thing is that this is a group of good hearted fellows and gals who think the people and the hobby and the music are more important than the equipment. There isn't one of these guys who thinks the only system in the world is his system. Where are you located Ivan? Pete.
We have a little bit of fun here too!
Hey Ivan, I remember that party, I recognize that grey haired guy. Yeah, you guys in Salt Lake have LOTS of fun!
Will you guys be at CES this year?I'm bringing Betsy. She'll be disappointed if she doesn't get to see Bill.
I seem to recall that party. Are you going this year?
Regards,
Geoff
nt
...why isn't it at my house?Incredible looking, can't imagine the sound.
IBSmiester
Open Your Ears....
What phono stage do you use??
I don't have my own phono stage yet, but pal Stephaen has been letting me use his Monolithic Sound rig, which I'm very appreciative of.
And I love the Gibson git-fiddles in the backround. Is one an L-5 and the other a J-45? Very cool.I am also a Garrard 30l/git -fiddle owner, although I'm a Martin man. Gotta love those Gibsons though.
Thanks for the kind words. Very close on the guitars! The archtop is a 1948 Gibson Super 300, and the flattie is a Gibson Advanced Jumbo in Adirondak & Brazillian.
that it really dosn't matter if you have an old one or a new one, they all sound great. The Adirondack/Brazillian combo is unsurpassed for steel string guitars. Just be sure to play it every day and don't be gentle with it. It should develop an incredible tone, just like the 300.Was the A/B thing a special order? Or did it come from Mandolin Bros. or anther of the like minded places that have these things made in small numbers?
The A/B AJ was made by the Gibson Montana custom shop north of where I live a few years ago. A great flattie.
before the custom shop moved to Montana. There were some great people working in the custom shop. I was in the finishing dept, so we saw all of the instruments. At the time, they ran the shop in three 8 hour shifts, 24 hours a day.
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