Rega P3.

Peripatetic wrote:Rega P3.

I am going to buy one of these very, very soon.

I have had for many years one of these...



..which I know are very popular amongst collectors of BBC designed equipment. I don't want to pretennd I know too much about this subject but it's given me about 20 years of trouble free service unlike the SME pickup arm I have with it which has seen better days thanks to drunken "friends" pulling it about with little to no respect.

Anyway, they are always hanging about on e-bay. You could do worse. Mind you it's direct drive so probably not worth a look in if
the$inmusicisallmine is to be believed.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GARRARD-301-IN-GREY ... dZViewItem

Because the motor is quite a beast it has to be housed on a sizeable plynth. So if you live with someone who is concerned with the esthetics of interior design you may need to warn them that a 6th of the living room is going to be taken up with a fusty looking gramaphone.

SME tone arms... also good.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZcollectradio[/img]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this in a previous thread, but have you tried http://www.audiogon.com ? It is like an Ebay for audio gear. Never tried it personally, but the prices seem good and I have heard excellent things.

Stuffy,

Your turntable happens to be one of the finest ever built, an idler wheel no less!

etch wrote:Stuffy,

Your turntable happens to be one of the finest ever built, an idler wheel no less!

i'll believe that when I hear it with my own ears.

just sayin....

musicisallmine,

I fully understand your skepticism, I felt the same way, until I heard one, and owned an idler wheel properly done, lest anyone think I'm a fanatic about this stuff, I'm not... I hope! I promise to try and hold off posting on the subject...

This is the first article I came across regarding the idler wheel 'thing' :

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/garrard/301.html

Realizing it would be REALLY expensive to do the Shino Labs or Lorricraft way with the Garrard, I forgot about it, discouraged, plus, because of the rebuilds, the Garrard's are now going for $700 and up on ebay. I wanted to replace my MMF7 and did not want to go the standard VPI endless upgrade path and I wanted something DIY and CHEAP (er)! Also less MDF, acrylic and piano black was a consideration, these old tables are built like tanks and and look a little more adventurous.

That's when I discovered this thread about the Lenco and had one built:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl ... ohnnantais

I guess you would have to listen to the Lenco or Garrard in a shootout with the TNT or similar high end belt drive table and decide which you prefer. The guy from the Audiogon thread does this on occasion and a lot of serious audiophiles have traded in their big money status rigs for one of these idler wheels.

Remember that hifi people like Arthur Salvatore are now on board with this idea and many people seriousy committed to DIY audio would not consider using anything else. Of course, the only opinion that truly counts is your own and the music that you are listening to is more important than the gear, but the gear is fun too, right?

Here is a nice site with pictures:

http://www.lencoheaven.com/

did you listen to any of the alternatives? did your lenco sound better than a VPI or a Linn or a WTT, or (Insert expensive late-80s warhorse here)?

or did you just trust what these writers said?

also, how in hell does the Garrard/Lenco prevent low freq. from affecting the platter/arm interface. The plinth is not suspended at all, is it? Is there no isolation between the environment and the platter/arm structure, or between the motor and the platter/arm structure?

finally, a lot of the arms shown on those Garrards and Lencos are pretty dire - knife bearing or unipivots. I have never heard convincing bass from one of those arms...

Yeah, I listened to a lot of alternatives, as I said, this is a pretty big hobby of mine, building amps, interconnects, speakers, etc. I spend way too much time fooling around with this stuff, I try to trust my ears when making choices regarding hi fi, but I'm definitely predisposed to DIY projects because of the no compromise in quality parts, cost factors and fun. The Lenco rebuild is all about constrained layer damping, the Audiogon thread explains the mechanics much better than I. Believe me, I'm very concerned about a low noise floor, perfect black, rumble, blah, blah, blah; probably more than most people, my tt is dead quiet.

I disagree about unipivots not providing good bass, especially the VPI 10.5, but tonearm options are endless if unipivot is not to someones liking. For a good cheap arm, it's hard to beat the souped up Rega's.

I happen to like the Linn Sondek quite a lot, but that table may have as many critics as the idler wheels!

etch wrote:Yeah, I listened to a lot of alternatives, as I said, this is a pretty big hobby of mine, building amps, interconnects, speakers, etc. I spend way too much time fooling around with this stuff, I try to trust my ears when making choices regarding hi fi, but I'm definitely predisposed to DIY projects because of the no compromise in quality parts, cost factors and fun. The Lenco rebuild is all about constrained layer damping, the Audiogon thread explains the mechanics much better than I. Believe me, I'm very concerned about a low noise floor, perfect black, rumble, blah, blah, blah; probably more than most people, my tt is dead quiet.

I disagree about unipivots not providing good bass, especially the VPI 10.5, but tonearm options are endless if unipivot is not to someones liking. For a good cheap arm, it's hard to beat the souped up Rega's.

I happen to like the Linn Sondek quite a lot, but that table may have as many critics as the idler wheels!

Great -

I am sure it sounds good. I would love to hear a Garrard vs. VPI/Linn/Sota with the same arm & cartridge. I like the way linns sound, and I think the do a lot of things right. And of course, set up is paramount. They are not, however, neutral devices.

But I have to give Ivor credit for his approach, and getting everyone talking about music and tonality, instead of looking at graphs and listening to tones....