[arjoll]

The story so far:

Early last year I asked a contact at a broadcaster if they had any old turntables that did 78rpm - dad wanted to copy some of his old 78's and was threatening to use a horrible looking old 1 valve record player that was in his aunt's estate! He said that they had an old Garrard sitting on a shelf at one of their storage sites that I could have.

Long story short, after chasing things up last week I have just received two boxes containing (apparently) 5 "and a half" turntables. I haven't unpacked them yet, but it looks like they are all 401's (at least 2 1/2 are!), which is pretty good - it looks like the 401 is now regarded as quite an audiophile unit (boardering on audiophool!).

I probably won't be able to unpack and check these until the weekend - and even then I will have to tidy up the workshop a bit first - but given that these won't have been in service for at least 20 years (I can only remember these guys using SL1200's in the studio) what should I check before powering up? My mechanical skills aren't brilliant.

There are also two tone arms - minus headshells - and some other miscellaneous stuff there, so expect a few more questions once I get my head around this!

Finally, any suggestions on materials to make a plinth?

(excuse the photo quality - just took it on my phone)

Thanks
Andrew