In praise of the Garrard SP25

[Edward Huggins]

As with so many others in the early 1960s, this was my first upgrade from my Collaro and then Garrard Autoslim autochangers. My first was the Deccadec, a Garrard SP25 Mk 1, but modified for Decca to exploit their superb Deram ceramic cartridge. Next came the more heavily built SP25 Mk2. Then came a SP25 Mk 3 with even more features but with that dubious slide-in cartridge carrier. I never progressed to the later belt-drive versions as my next deck was a Goldring GL75... you can see where I'm going with this.
Those SP25s were the basis of many an introduction to Hi Fi and in their day were very desirable.
I still have a SP25 Mk1 and a Mk2.
I can't remember a side-by-side review with the later, competitor, BSR MP60 and their lighter-plattered BSR P128, nor did I have direct owner-experience of them.
From any Member's experience, just how did they compare?

[Nuvistor]

Originally Posted by Edward Huggins

Then came a SP25 Mk 3 with even more features but with that dubious slide-in cartridge carrier. I never progressed to the later belt-drive versions as my next deck was a Goldring GL75... you can see where I'm going with this.

The SP25 was a nice deck until the Mk3 with the slide in head shell, that was not one of their best ideas. The GL75 even better but the GL75 did have motor problems, I have since learned it was faulty diodes inside the motor assembly which could be replaced. Still the motor replacement was an easy job.

[Restoration73]

SP25 Mk3 onwards had more lateral arm friction because of the auto cam trip. MkII I have
only lifts arm at end of play.

MP60 was price competitor with SP25/3, and had nicer styling but seemed to have more
rumble, P128 had a steel platter for ceramic carts. The higher end version HT70 had
a heavy cast platter with a captive centre spindle, i.e. rotating.

[martin.m]

In the early 1970s the SP25 was often paired with the Goldring G800 cartridge as a budget priced Hi Fi turntable. I have a Mk4, used mainly for playing 78rpm records and have never had any problems with the slide in cartridge carrier.

[teetoon]

The SP25 MKIII was my fourth turntable after a cheap plastic thing with seperate plastic arm plugged into Gran's Radio, then a Garrard Model T and a Garrard 4HF that suffered a motor fault soon after I pursuaded my Dad to let me buy it from him.

Anyway, I saw my first SP25 MKIII in my aunties Hacker Centurion and found they could be bought in chassis form from G W Smith in Edgeware Road for £10 fitted with an Acos GP104 cartridge. I saved up as I was still at school then and put the deck in a home made plinth and it was played through a valve chassis amp with EL84 output. It was great to watch the deck going through it's auto play and lift functions and I really liked the styling which was so 70's. They did boast a design award at the time.
Even with that small amp I noticed the motor hum as soon as the stylus hit the record but it was much better than my Model T which had a large DC motor with a brass weight governor. It really did rumble like a train !

Over the years I have had all the SP25's and still have a dozen or more now. I was surprised that the original SP25 had such a superior turntable. Much more weight to it. It 's headshell connection being more reliable too.

It's interesting to note that the MKII was pretty much the same in construction with just a cosmetic change around the operating levers, and a dial for tracking force but retained the heavy turntable.

I also note that the MKII fitted to Dynatron equipment used a lighter steel turntable and came in black rather than chromatic green.

This is a bit like the BSR MP60 / P128 comparison.
The BSR MP60 is actually a bit quieter in operation (compared to the SP25) I would say after being introduced to it in a Wharfedale Linton system. You don't notice the motor hum much at all and it does have a very sustantial turntable.
They did ofcourse make the HT70 as a next model up and that had an even heavier and thicker turntable. I did wonder if the HT meant heavy turntable.

As for the belt drive SP25, MKV and VI, they were fairly quiet in the motor department and bearings in general had improved from the MKIV model on.
Personally I didn't like the gimbal style arm bearing of the MKVI as it felt wobbly in the lateral movement and the arm part of the bearings was made of plastic. You could tell the bean counters were firmly in charge by then.

As you say Edward, they were sought after as a way in to budget Hi Fi and certainly looked after my records. The only real criticism being inner groove distortion as there was no adjustment on the first 4 models. The MK5 and 6 let you move the cartridge forward and back a little.
All in all, they are still easy to service and sound great when you compare what was available later at such a low price.

David.

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by Nuvistor

...The GL75 even better but the GL75 did have motor problems, I have since learned it was faulty diodes inside the motor assembly which could be replaced. Still the motor replacement was an easy job.

In my experience the Lenco motor is pretty bomb proof in its simplicity and there are no diodes in the motor whatsoever (or anywhere else in a Lenco 75 for that matter) - it is a simple AC induction motor. I'm quite a fan of these excellent turntables

I wonder what it is that you are remembering or have I somehow misunderstood your post?


Cheers,
Steve.

[paulsherwin]

The SP25/III was my first halfway decent record deck.

[dave walsh]

My recollection is that, like the Akai 4000 Tape Recorder, these record decks seemed amazing at the time because they worked well, looked very modern and professional by comparison with their predecessors [mainly auto-changers] and even more importantly, were affordable I think I saw my first one at the Record Emporium in a Victorian Shopping Arcade [near the Land of Green Ginger] in Hull [circa 1969] but I probably bought a Mk 2 a year or so later, back in Gtr Manchester. That would have had a GP91 cartridge [bought on the advice of a chap in the Hi Fi shop at Bury].

It served me well for a very long time but as the "Hi-Fi" boom took hold and a great deal of other gear appeared, through the seventies and further, there was sometimes a bit of a negative attitude developing towards the SP25.

In more recent decades and especially within the Forum, there seems to have been a re-evaluation and recognition that were and still are, a desirable product in their own right-not just a cheaper stop-gap!

Dave W

[Nuvistor]

Originally Posted by fetteler

In my experience the Lenco motor is pretty bomb proof in its simplicity and there are no diodes in the motor whatsoever (or anywhere else in a Lenco 75 for that matter) - it is a simple AC induction motor. I'm quite a fan of these excellent turntables

I wonder what it is that you are remembering or have I somehow misunderstood your post?


Cheers,
Steve.

I never took the motor apart but read on I thought it was the Lenco site about the diodes, if that info is wrong disregard it. I did though change a few motors on the GL75 in the 1970's. Definitely fixed the problems I had with no bounced jobs, perhaps a bad batch. The other problem I had with the GL75 was the Vee rubber arm bearings but again very easy fix.

[fetteler]

Ahh, OK Frank, nice to hear from you
The motor thing is probably a 'misrememberence' of yours then (very forgivable- we all have 'em!) those Lenco motors are really the heart of their turntables and remained basically the same over many generations of models. You are spot on though regarding the rubber vee blocks used to carry the knife edges of the pickup arm. Different vee block materials and their various merits are still the topic of much discussion by Lenco enthusiasts!
If anyone reading this is particularly interested in Lenco turntables then may I heartily recommend the excellent forum Lenco Heaven:
https://www.lencoheaven.net/

Cheers,
Steve.

[Max Ripple]

As an impoverished trainee in the late 'sixties,I worked in a Dealer's workshop where the senior Engineer's were all hi-fi buff's.They built their own systems,and there was a degree of rivalry over each other's system sound quality too.
The deck of choice was the Garrard SP25 in it's various forms.I became convinced about hi-fi too after hearing another (younger) Engineer's system,which he demonstrated with Disraeli Gear's,by Cream,and I was determined to make my own system too.
I used the BSR MP60/Shure M75 combo and was very pleased with it.I built several more systems for friends and associates,and they all enjoyed them.
I graduated to the Goldring Lenco GL75,and I still have it in my collection.
When I later worked for Comet in their service dept,these decks were often in the workshop.Hum was the usual complaint,and the "official" solution was to hit the motor laminations with a small toffee hammer,"fine tuning" for minimum hum!!!Effective too.I've often wondered if the hum was another manifestation of the 220/240 mains voltage difference?
Nick

[Nickthedentist]

I have several of these in the "to do pile" but the only Garrard I use at the moment is an AT6/IIa, which is in fact very similar indeed to the early SP25s. From member GP49000:

The SP25 was introduced in 1964 and was built on the compact, popular Autoslim chassis. It was essentially an AT60 record changer without the multiple-play, record-changing mechanism. It also incorporated a built-in arm lift/lower provision which replaced the REJECT function on the control panel. Its large, nonmetallic, cast and machined platter were identical to that of the AT60, as was its fully counterweight-adjusted, dynamically balanced tonearm with built-in, calibrated tracking weight adjuster requiring no external gauge.

It's in a Hacker Serenade, its SC12M cartridge feeding an ECL86 P-P amp into a Goodmans 10" x 6" bass driver with a couple of cone tweeters. The SP25 seems to have been an option in the Cavalier, but not the Serenade or Gondolier AFAIK.

It was seized and filthy when I got it, so it had to be stripped down to the last ball bearing, cleaned and reassembled. It now does its job perfectly, with negligble W&F. There is some rumble but it's not evident unless the record not very heavily-modulated and volume control is set very high, and feedback becomes a problem by then anyway.

The kids use it to play stacks of 7" singles, I listen to the odd classical LP on it when I'm away from my "proper" system.

As Edward has said in another post, it is a great match for the system, and upgrading it to something superior would not really be worthwhile without upgrading everything else too.

Gene (GP49000) wrote most of the excellent Garrard ID thread. For all the Autoslim-derived decks, see post 18 onwards. The info about the SP25 starts at post 29.
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=89840

Nick

[BRASSBITS]

The SP25 was an option on the Gondolier

[Nickthedentist]

Ah thanks, I've never met one yet.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Certainly a cut above the average. Very well constructed and a good introduction to domestic Hi-Fi.
The later Mk3 model was cost cut as always. Not so nice but the Brits are so price conscious that manufacturer of well designed equipment was spoiled due to stupid economies. John

[Nickthedentist]

What was so bad about the Mk3 etc John? Just that awful sliding cartridge carrier, or other stuff too? At least the carrier's contacts can be bypassed (by disconnecting the arm's wires from the headshell, pulling through an inch or so more wire, and soldering the push-on tags directly to the wires from the arm).

The Mk4 had a ferrite(?) bit on the rotor which always seems to be unglued, but this was probably OK during its "design life".

Amazing to think that the Mk1 was introduced some 56 years ago now.

Nick

[martinhog]

No one else has mentioned this, so here goes:- The SP25 was also very popular with mobile discos as they were durable and withstood life “on the road” really well. I was using 2 x SP25 Mark 3’s in a mobile set up until 1987, they never let me down. Initially using Acos GP91SC cartridges and a home brew mixer, they retired with Shure M75’s (tracking at 3.5grams with 100 hormonal teenagers jumping about) connected to a brilliant MJ Mixer. I still have my Dad’s SP25 MK2 which will need a new home soon.A classic ?

[Andrew2]

The SP25 MkII was my first 'proper' deck when I started building my first stereo systems in about 1970. First cartridge was a Sonotone 9TAHC which seemed to suit it very well, and then I moved up the the Shure M3D, a cartridge that seemed to be hewn from solid coal. Good performer. I kept this deck well into the 80's and it ended up with a Shure M55 cartridge which I thought was best of all.

By the time we got our mobile disco going the MkII was obsolete so we used MkIII's instead. I wasn't particularly impressed, the engineering seemed lighter and less solid. They gave no trouble though, despite the knocks and scrapes in the back of my mate's Anglia estate...
By the time the MkIV came along, there was a feeling of cost-cutting and 'that'll do' about them.

[boxdoctor]

As mentioned in post #17, the SP25 had a degree of ruggedness which lent them well to use as disco decks.
I had a pair of Mk2's, with the auto-stop disabled, in my disco system which I used fairly regularly for about 5 years (early '70s), and they functioned very reliably, fitted with the special arm for Deram cartridges. Some misgivings were felt about the cartridges, but they proved, suprisingly, to be about as tolerant of disco (ab)use as any other comparable head of the time at the price.
The sound quality from the Derams was superb for that kind of work.
They now languish in my loft, free to anyone who wants to pick them up... Tony.

[Nickthedentist]

Not everyone agrees though... https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...22&postcount=9

Nick