Under 65? A vinyl addict of the post-Linn persuasion? Then don't go poring over old hi-fi magazines, books or yearbooks. It will only aggravate your ulcer because, if the amount of wordage given to what they quaintly used to refer to as 'motor units' is any indication, they didn't think too much of turntables back then.

In the 1950s and 1960s, audio hobbyists didn't to turntables . Hi-fi 'how to' books and yearbooks gave tens of pages to cartridges (or 'heads' or 'pick-ups') but only two or three pages for the decks themselves. They thought that the cartridge was responsible for, oh, let's say 99 percent of the job of carrying the signal from groove to phono stage. The 'motor unit' and arm? Necessary only to rotate the disc and carry the pick-up.

, all the arm had to do was allow the cartridge to traverse the disc with minimal tracking error, presenting it with a stable platform, e.g. no rattling from the bearings. Stereo changed all of that: SME, Ortofon and others proved, after the advent of two-channel playback virtually quadrupled the demands on a cartridge, that it wasn't quite so base and straightforward a task. As for the turntable itself? If you read the writings of patriarchs Wilson, Watts and Kelly, you surmise that a deck need only to rotate perfectly at the designated speeds of 33 1/3, 45 or 78rpm, without wow, flutter, rumble or cogging effects. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if the deck's motor was shielded so you could use cartridges from Decca. End of story. Stability was all, while addressing isolation was a given; microphony, for example, is not a new problem. But magical sonic properties were not attributed to the rotating portion of the equation.

Which is not to say that there wasn't a hierarchy. In the 1950s, reference- or broadcast-grade decks, referred to as 'transcription' turntables, were of idler or rim drive, with only minimal isolation afforded by the suspensions; that might mean merely something as rudimentary as rubber 'mushrooms' or leaf springs. At the pinnacle, slugging it out to this day amongst anachrophiles, were two rivals: the Switzerland's Thorens TD-124 and the UK contender, the Garrard 301.

They would remain at the top of the tree, from the dawn of the LP to the arrival of the AR turntable, the latter heralding the efficacy of belt-drive and a three-point suspended sub-chassis, as emulated by Thorens with the TD-150, Ariston's RD-11, then the Linn LP-12 and countless others. But there remains a diamond-hard core of 301 fans, and there's a reason why: despite the lack of suspension, despite the rim drive, a 301 can sound simply amazing.

Even with an average age of 45 years, the Garrard 301 and its replacement, the superior-in-every-way 401, still command respect. As you can imagine, they are worshipped by those sorts of audiophiles who take seriously the joke about how many of the breed are required to change a light-bulb, worshipping without irony a generation of record decks that can in no way run as quietly as a well-designed belt-drive or even certain underrated direct-drives. But nostalgia being what it is, the 301 and 401 are so adored by Japanese audiophiles in particular that they find homes in $100,000-plus systems, usually in custom-made plinths with four-figure price-tags.

Garrard itself is - technically speaking - probably the oldest name in audio because it is part of the family that gave us Garrard and Company, appointed Crown Jewellers of London in 1721. Thus, it can claim - in 16 years - that it is three centuries old. This is no more of a stretched conceit than a modern bank tracing its roots back to a shipping or trading company from the 1600s. The part of the DNA that led to turntables evolved in time for the Great War when, in 1914, Garrard was asked to manufacture precision range finders for the British Artillery, possessing as they did, both the craftsmen and the necessary machinery.

Thus, in 1915, the Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company Ltd was formed with Major S.H. Garrard as Chairman and Mr C.E. Newbegin as Managing Director, from a factory installed in the premises the White Heather Laundry in Willesden, London. When the war ended, Garrard segued into consumer products. Luckily for us, they took note of the boom in gramophone sales and with it a demand for spring-wound motors. (Remember: Great Britain once led the world in clock and watch manufacturing.)

Garrard's audio output started off with the Garrard Number 1 Spring Wound Gramaphone Motor. In 1919, they moved to new premises in Swindon, making motors for Columbia, Decca, HMV, Lugton, Selecta, Coppock and many others. In 1930, though, with electric motors replacing the wind-ups, the first Garrard-branded record-player appeared.

Garrard decided to make a top-quality AC motor as a prestige model, a direct-drive motor for the heart of what became the Garrard Model 201. (Yes: .) It found success quickly, being adopted by the BBC and other broadcasters, by cinemas and by those protean creatures who would later be called audiophiles. Designed originally for 78rpm records, it was later modified to play the 33 1/3rpm LPs and 45s, and was the first of what were later to be called transcription turntables. It featured a 32-pole induction motor designed by Monty Mortimer, mounted in a pressed steel chassis. Being direct drive, it featured a complex mechanical speed governor.

The 201 remained the flagship model through the Second World War years, during which Garrard, naturally, helped the war effort with military work. In 1945, after the death of Major Garrard, all links with the jewellery strand of the brand were severed, and The Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company Ltd. became a separate entity with Mr H.V. Slade as Managing Director. By this time, with the war over, the public wanted a change from austerity, so gramophone sales escalated. A couple of interim models would appear to exploit the new 10in and 12in, 33 1/3rpm and 7in 45rpm vinyl records, as well as 78s. They need, too, to accommodate a new generation of lightweight pick-ups, including magnetic cartridges.

Then, in October 1954, on the eve of the dawn of stereo and thus concurrent with the global explosion in interest in 'high fidelity', Garrard unleashed the 301. Robust, minimalist, beautifully-built, it featured a massive motor driving an idler, which drover the platter via its rim. The unit consisted of a die-cast aluminium base, enamelled in grey (later changed to a creamy white) and featured grease bearings, changed to oil bearings in 1957. And, yes, there are those who prefer the former to the latter. As the grease bearing models are much more rare, the prices are commensurately higher. Best estimates for sales of the 301, according to the archive material in the possession of Loricraft - the keepers of the Garrard flame - suggest circa 65,000.

In 1965, Garrard launched the 401 to replace the 301. In addition to Eric Marshall's styling makeover, a more severe look in metallic charcoal with chrome details, much was changed underneath though the deck remained, fundamentally, the same rim-drive behemoth. Most notably, the motor had increased shielding to allow it to be used with Deccas, Grados and other cartridges susceptible to hum, and so was de-rated from 16W to 12W. The 301's motor had aluminium endplates and was ventilated, while the 401 had iron endplates and was not ventilated. In place of the 301's flat thrust pad, the 401 featured a raised phosphor bronze thrust pad, while the variable speed range increased from the 301's +/-2% to +/-3%. By 1977, when the 401 was put out to pasture, approximately 74,000 had been sold.

ANORAKIA
Garrard 301s and 401s are amongst the easiest vintage turntables to run in the 21st Century, thanks to the efforts of Loricraft. This company - also known for a superb record cleaning machine - buys and sells used decks, refurbishes them to any level you require, provides power supplies, idler wheels and arm-boards, and even produces the 501 with official permission to call it a Garrard. Along with companies such as Shindo, Zenn and others, Loricraft also produces plinths; my own 401 resides in a magnificent Slate Audio plinth, but Slate Audio seems to now be inactive. Shindo also manufactures ultra-high-quality bearings and replacement platters.

Amusingly, mods and accessories for Garrards have been around for decades. The original SME 2000 plinth featured the necessary hardware to provide a suspension for the Garrard (or the TD-124), while the Black Knight Rumble Cure, circa 1973, was shown with a foam mat, record weight and other accoutrements on a 401. The turntables, however, are fundamentally robust and good-sounding, so major surgery needn't be part of your agenda.

Shopping for any used turntable requires common sense - we're talking about mechanical wear and tear rather than the replacement of the odd valve or resistor. Second-hand values range from £100 for a basket case to four figures for an early 301. As an example of what you should expect to pay for refurbishment you've found a decent candidate, a company such as Loricraft charges the following:

Standard servicing starts at £200
Restoring a Garrard 301: typically £900
Restoring a Garrard 401: typically £650
Full remanufacturing: typically £850-£1150
Plinths: from £275 depending on the wood

When seeking out a 301, note that there are essentially three models to consider. The earliest is the grey, grease-bearing model, replaced by the cream-enamel grease-bearing model, followed by the third, the oil-bearing model of 1957. If you put 'Garrard 301' into Google, you will come up with nearly 24,000 sites, and the bulk of them will address the 301 'oil vs grease' debates, and more importantly, 301 vs 401. My own take? The 301 looks better, the 401 sounds better. I expect to get bombarded with hate mail for that remark, but I'm adamant.

Terry O'Sullivan at Loricraft will, with gun to head, foot on neck and electrodes to testes, admit that the 401 is a superior machine despite what it says on the Loricraft website. I've heard demos between the 301 and 401, and...let me repeat that I own a 401. This, however, will not deter collectors, especially those with a high sushi content in their diets, from preferring 301s, or from choosing grease over oil lubrication. And the 301 is far, far cooler-looking, especially in cream. But such are the characteristics of collector mania and anachrophilia, so the 301 vs 401 war will be waged as long as people spin vinyl.

Amongst the observations gleaned from the above-mentioned sites (and from an 11-hour flight seated next to Terry), the consensus seems to be that the 401 was a better design, but the 301 was better-made. Loricraft's design of the 501 was intended to find the best of both. Terry says that, 'In developing our model Garrard 501, we have tried to put right some of the design weaknesses of the 301 and the 401. These were the short cuts of mass production; maybe what the 501 has is 'long cuts' - hence the price. All 501 parts are retro-fittable to the previous decks, primarily the bearings, platters, motors and power supplies.'

Amusingly, Loricraft is right on the money when they say that, 'Translating Garrard's original prices into modern money, a deck with a modest arm would cost the equivalent of £1000. As far as we can see, this did not cover their costs, so the cheaper turntables must have subsidised these flagships.' To put the price of an original into context, a Garrard 401 in 1965 cost £27 19s plus purchase tax of £4 11s. At the same time, an SME Model 3009 sold for £21 7s plus £3 11s 3d. And an Ortofon SPU/G m-c cartridge would have added £18 plus purchase tax of £2 17s 9d. The average weekly wage in the UK in 1965? £19.11s.9d. So you're looking at three weeks' wages for a decent front-end.

In 2005, the nationally average wage is £430 per week, so £1300 would be the equivalent allocation. A decent Garrard 301 or 401, a second-hand SME 3009, an Ortofon m-c in good nick - well, I just found with three mouse clicks a 401 for £295, a mint 3009 for £160 and an SPU for £150. Add in Loricraft restoration and you have...£1255. Sounds like a bargain to me.

COLLECTORS' CONTACTS
Garrard and Loricraft Audio
4 Big Lane,
Lambourn,
Berks RG17 8XQ
Office Phone/Fax: 01488-72267
Workshop Phone:01488-71307
email: terry@garrard501.com

www.garrard501.com
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/garrard/301.html
www.analogue-classics.com/html/garrard_301.html

SIDEBAR: Technical Descriptions
Model 301
Motor: Shaded-pole induction motor in heavy cast casing suspended on six
tensioned springs, magnetically screened, speeds 33 1/3, 45, 78rpm
Chassis: Die-cast aluminium
Platter: Rim-driven. Machined and balanced die-cast aluminium; 12in diameter;
Weight 6lb. Fitted with rubber mat. Strobe markings optional extra
Frequency: 50 or 60 cycles according to pulley fitted
Wow: <0.2%
Flutter: <0.05%
Rumble: 'almost non-existent'
Speed range: 32-34rpm; 44-46rpm; 76-80rpm approx.
Dimensions: 13.25x14.5x6in (WDH); recommended mounting board size, 18x18in
Weight: 16lb
Price: £19 plus purchase tax (1956)

Model 401
Motor: Completely screened spring-mounted shaded-pole 'transcription'
motor, speeds 33 1/3, 45, 78 rpm, adjustable by eddy current
brake
Chassis: Die-cast aluminium plate
Platter: 6 Ib. machined aluminium with gear-cut illuminated strobe markings on rim;
statically balanced, anti¬static turntable mat
Frequency: 50 or 60 cycles according to pulley fitted
Wow and Flutter: less than 0.05% RMS
Rumble: 'almost non-existent'
Size: 13 7/8x14 5/8x6 1/8in (WDH)
Price: £27 19s plus purchase tax £4 11s (1965)