A few weeks with Diana - the lovely Swindon lady

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JonnyP

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OK, so I've been listening to vinyl on the beautiful G301 that Mike (fdlsys) made perfection of.  From the serial number, depending on whether production was continuous, she was probably originally finished in August 1957 making her a grand old age of 60 and officially becoming an OAP (well, if they hadn't shifted pension age anyway) in her home town.

She is a little grumpy when woken up (this was always the case) but 15 minutes in, she finds her groove (a few minutes more help on cold days).  She is totally silent when running (I keep rechecking when turning the power off) and keeps perfect speed.

The arm is a Mike-made 12" wonder and the lift mechanism (with extreme silicon worthy of Dolly Parton) is smooth and graceful.  The cart (complete with little brush on the end) sounds fantastic.

The plinth, well, look at any of the pictures on the TT thread and you can see the beauty.  What you can't see are the earthquake proof feet (you can accidentally knock the her during play and she'll keep on playing whilst doing a brief hula).

So how does she sound?  Vast soundstage, beautiful sound anywhere in the room is the first thing to come to mind.  Great but not flabby or overpowering bass (I moved the sub and it makes zero difference), lovely mids, clear and not shrill highs - music as it should be heard.  Even a garage stored copy of Dexy's 'Too Ra Ey' once cleaned of dust and grime sounds great.  Ambient music (Eno, TD) is enveloping, Can (one of my favourites) have more detail than I've heard before.

So, big kudos to Mike and yes, everything you've heard about a Garrard 301 is true.  Probably the best table in the world.
 
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