Vintage analogue reproduction

[AJDONhf!]

I have two hi-fi items which were given to me years ago and have been in storage ever since. They are mint conditio, unused, and have never been installed in any system:

SME 3009 Series 2 Improved tonearm and Garrard 401 turntable.

I am unsure as to whether to offer them for sale individually or have them assembled into a fully functioing unit. I am told that a suitable plinth could be quite expensive so I am wondering whether it would be worthwhile.

I already have a top of the range sound system, with more modern equipment, to play FM radio and CDs / tapes, but my collection of old classical LPs is not being played at present.

[Ted Kendall]

A nice dilemma to have!

These two items, mounted in a suitable plinth with a decent cartridge, would make a very good job of playing LPs. The 401 should be inspected, cleaned and lubricated as necessary. The SME will work straight out of the box. To keep rumble to a minimum, the 401 needs to be firmly mounted to a heavy base, and such bases can be expensive, depending on material and finish.

Alternatively, the money these items would make (comfortably in excess of a thousand pounds) would pay for something like a Technics 1200G, which offers a similar performance in a more compact package, and rumbles considerably less.

You will find the merits of idler, direct and belt drive argued over endlessly, usually with more enthusiasm than knowledge, but the bottom line is that a good design of any stripe will play records well, and the 401 is one such.

[Radio Wrangler]

As Ted said, the 401 has a cult following, and members of that cult will pay a lot of money for one in good condition and serviced. One which needs a service is still a valuable item. People not in that cult think they are still well made, but have other preferences. The extreme wing of the Garrard idler drive fan club seem to prefer the 301 to the 401. I've never come across any reason for this, but Garrard thought the 401 was an improvement on the 301. Go down this path and you're into intractable arguments over grease-lubricated versus oil lubricated bearings.

The SME 3009 is a classic arm, almost universally considered excellent, well-made and well-designed. Again, a valuable item on its own. The trend towards moving coil cartridges with their inevitable lower compliance needs a more massive arm to bring the primary (compliance/moment of inertis) resonance down below the audio range. Designed for low tracking weight, high compliance cartridges, the SME is a bit too low mass for MC cartridges. It seems a shame to add mass to something taken so far in the low-mass direction, so they are probably best with a high class moving magnet type cartridge. So once again you get twin cultures in the hifi world.

There is simply too much noise and unsupported opinions floating around the hifi world that you'll never get a direct bit of advice with good reasoning behind it, without differing advice.

If you want to use these things yourself, you'll need a good plinth. Yes they're expensive as a bought item. Of course, opinions differ on which is the best. Prices can be crazy. But if you search through this forum, you will find cases where people have made their own plinths for 301s and 401s, and had success. The reasoning used in designing these things makes interesting reading.

Garrard's high quality turntable line came to an end with the 401. Their competitor was Thorens in Switzerlnd. The Thorens TD124 was a high quality turntable with variable speed and an idler as its final drive. They replaced it with their TD124 belt drive turntable with electronic variable speed. Thorens saw this as an improvement, but we now have two cultures. Because the idler worshippers are more fanatical than the belt-worshippers, TD124s seem to fetch a lot more money than TD125s.

So, for the addition of a plinth (Elbow grease or cash!) you can have a setup which plenty of people would consider excellent.

Conversely, the bits you have could be sold and would buy your choice of a number of belt drive or direct drive turntables, all having their own fan clubs.

You could take a hybrid path, keep the SME and sell the Garrard to get a belt drive turntable to go with your arm.

What you won't get is non-partisan advice. There is some around, but separating it out from all the partisan noise is difficult.

There are also rebellious things you can choose, thumbing your nose at various cults. These too can sound just fine. I went down this path, just for the h*ll of it. I'm happy with my choice but it ties my into cartridges with integral styli and no longer available. Very expensive to get one re-tipped with a new diamond.

On Youtube, there's a youngish woodworker in Yorkshire with a video channel, and makes fine furniture sort of stuff. He's been making plinths for someone refurbing Garrard 301s etc. Impressive work, but he did reveal that a finished 301 in one of these, with arm was tipping the scales at £13,000. 401s are likely to have a notch less fanaticism if housed equally well.

Too many options are open to you, too much advice also.

David

[Sergeauckland]

Just to reiterate the importance of a solid, heavy plinth for the 401. When I bought mine, it came in a Howland-West plinth, very common at the time. This was a decent enough veneered chipboard plinth, but not heavy enough, and quite resonant. I filled the cavity with the remnants of a bag of plaster I had in the garage, having made some cardboard shuttering to leave a suitable hole for the turntable mechanism. The several Kgs of added mass and removal of cavities sorted the plinth issue out. As heavy as the expensive plinths, but at near zero cost.

Eventually sold the 401 as four turntables in my listening room was just a bit much.

S.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

The extreme wing of the Garrard idler drive fan club seem to prefer the 301 to the 401. I've never come across any reason for this, but Garrard thought the 401 was an improvement on the 301. Go down this path and you're into intractable arguments over grease-lubricated versus oil lubricated bearings.

For the record (and only for the record), the change from grease to oil bearing happened during the 301's production run. Ralph West reviewed an early 401 rather harshly in Hi Fi News, criticising inferior machining and looser speed regulation with changing mains voltage compared to his own 301. This last was a consequence of reducing the hum field from the motor, which had caused trouble with some Decca pickups. This review might be the reason why some look askance at the 401, but what tends to get ignored is that West wrote a postscript some eighteen months later when a recent example passed through his hands. This one was much better in both respects, and West concluded by welcoming the fact that the 401 was now being made properly.

I must get out more.

I have an excellent 301 which I bought for around £6.00 in a furniture auction around 1975. It still gives very good service and seems quite happy mounted on 3/4" veneered ply in a cabinet of my own making. Franky I can't see any advantage in a super plinth unless the player is situated next to some very loud playback or traffic rumble.

I have advised the kids that when I go QRT that they should have a care selling the Garrard and also my 15" Tannoys!

[knobtwiddler]

I've been told that the hifi emporium near us could survive on selling Tannoy DC speakers alone. Their value is definitely something you want to make your offspring aware of!

[Welsh Anorak]

To answer your question, I would be inclined to sell these items separately.
They are unused and as such will command a high price.
It's likely the 401 will need a little fettling to get it to perforn properly - something a buyer will be happy to do as well as getting a plinth to his preference.

As Ted suggests, the money you get would easily buy a very good turntable/arm/cartridge, though you could buy a fairly cheap (though good) turntable and buy some new records with the balance!

[majex45]

You have been given two very nice items. As has been said before, a plinth of suitable quality will not be cheap and it will then need a cartridge equal to the other components. The next part is more painful, how deep are your pockets and how much do you want to hear your vinyl? As has been said, you could sell the two items and buy a modern, high quality and low maintenance alternative or spend the money and listen to the items you already have. It may also depand on the sentimental attachment you have to the parts, for example if they were gifted by a parent or a friend. Only you can decide that part. There is also FOMO, if you sell and buy, will you constantly feel that you have missed a golden opportunity to hear your vinyl on the components you have?
Conclusion: no advice merely questions that only you can answer.