This joint needs some more vintage hifi

[TNHNDYMAN]

Ken-

How would you rate the above Garrard soundwise? Reason I ask, I pulled a mint one out of an older console last summer but havent done anything with it due to the power cord was a connector that went to the tube amp inside the console. It has 4 different wires (I'm trying to remember without digging it out of the closet) but I wasn't sure what would be involved in converting it to stand alone use.

I take that back it is a Garrad 210. Found a couple pics. It came out of a "Senator Space-Tone" console. Very little info online, other than it was part of a record club membership give away if you signed up for so many years of buying records. The outfit was based out of the Wash DC area and quickly went out of business. The above ?'s still pertain to whether it would be worth trying to convert it to stand alone use.

Was going to add pics but apparently they are too big in file size to upload. I need to find a decent free editing program to resize and or compress quality slightly to downsize a few pics.

[txcoastal1]

you can compress pic in paint, and word
Make sure you save as 2nd image so you can keep original

[mhardy6647]

TNHNDYMAN is the Garrard an RC210 changer? If so, the manuals are available at:
http://www.vinylengine.com/library/garrard/rc210.shtml

(free registration required to download and well worth the effort; a terrific resource)

[organ]

Wow, Ken. You electronics skill never fail to impress me. You've worked on some amazing gear and always do an excellent job.

Mrh,
Thanks for sharing the flyers. I swear man, the build quality back then is superior to the ones of similar price (including inflation) today.

[TNHNDYMAN]

Thanks for the paint resize tip. I'll try again...

[scottyboy76]

Dont you know someone was proud to get that stereo home.

Probably spent many hours lovin life listening to tunes.

[Kenneth Swauger]

Hi TNHNDYMAN,
The Garrard I worked on probably represents more of a historical milestone than a sonic one. There's just too much mechanical linkage connected to the tonearm for it to sound very good. Being a record changer there is a cam assembly attached to the platter which lifts the arm and places it on the beginning of the record and then lift it off at the end. The complete opposite of what a modern turntable/tonearm do now, eliminating any superfluous mechanism, even mechanical bearings to allow the phono cartridge to extract the smallest amounts of information. I've always compared what a turntable has to do to how a seismograph works. The seismograph has to detect extremely small vibrations in the earth and a record player has to do the same thing but from the surface of a record. If you were going to install a seismograph you wouldn't put it near a steel mill or a race track, right? Too many competing vibrations to give you any indications of what was happening in the earth. The same thing happens in a good turntable system, no competing vibrations from chattering bearings or arm linkage moving underneath the platter.
But, this doesn't mean you shouldn't try and get your Garrard working. There should be an appreciation for classic audio manufacturers even though that particular model isn't on the "most significant" list. If you can take a photo or two of the underside of the chassis we can help with the wiring. You'll have a better understanding of what happens "under the hood".
Cheers, Ken

[mhardy6647]

Interestingly, the Garrard 301 transcription table - also shown in the catalog page scan I posted - lies (arguably) at the other end of the spectrum and is still held in high regard by at least a segment of the vinyl-playing cognescenti...




... and then there is this guy...



Not mine (although it passed through en route to its new owner)... One of those is on my (thankfully, now fairly short) bucket list :-)

(in the meantime, I will be bringing a Rek-O-Kut 743 on-line in the not-too-distant future. Just need an arm and a "plinth"...)

[TNHNDYMAN]

Nice pics MrH.

Thanks for the info Ken. I'll try to get some pics up later of the underside. I'll have to check but it's possible the turntable has no power supply in its chassis since it was getting power from the main unit. The would complicate things to the point of being more trouble than it's worth.

[Kenneth Swauger]

I imagine Garrard, like most companies, designed products for different markets. At the time most people wanted convenience, so companies made turntables that all you had to do was put a stack of 45s or LPs on the spindle and push the "play" lever. The machine did the rest, dropping the record, moving the tonearm and changing to the next one when it was finished. Then all you need to do was flip the stack over to play the "B" sides. For radio stations, however, that wasn't important when they played a record, the DJ did all the work so much of the mechanism was eliminated in favor of ruggedness and low wow and flutter and rumble. The same thing has happened throughout audio's history, convenience trumps performance. It doesn't mean owners didn't enjoy their Garrard record changers (my first setup was a Garrard SL95 with a Shure M75) it just reflects on what was popular at the time and how it relates to what is available today.
I don't suspect there's a power supply for the turntable, rather some switching done by the main unit when the system was turned off/on. Just my semi-educated guess.

[mhardy6647]

It is as Ken said.

All you need to know is what terminals underneath the turntable's chassis are "hot". You can probably trace the wires through the switch to the motor - and/or that service bulletin on the VinylEngine site ought to make it fairly clear.

Come to think of it, you do need to ensure that the turntable is set up for 120 VAC/60 Hz. Assuming it was sold in the US, it should be.

[Kenneth Swauger]

This link should provide lots of nostalgic interest, I know it kept me occupied for a while:
http://reel2reeltexas.com/vinAd53.html#AmpCorp
Enjoy, Ken

[Msabot1]

I still have an old Dual 1229 that I bought new in 72! Still in good shape too! Will this qualify as vintage?

[mhardy6647]

of course.

[mhardy6647]

[mhardy6647]

Not to interrupt myself :-) but I just saw this news at AK...

I just learned that the proprietor of the Radio Shack catalog archive site http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ just brought a similar site on-line for the old Allied catalogs:

http://www.alliedcatalogs.com/catalogs_main.html



This is momentous news (at least as far as I am concerned). No affiliation (other than my own rather idiosyncratic enjoyment of vintage catalogs!).

Thought this group would like to know.

[cnh]

Not to interrupt myself :-) but I just saw this news at AK...

I just learned that the proprietor of the Radio Shack catalog archive site http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ just brought a similar site on-line for the old Allied catalogs:

http://www.alliedcatalogs.com/catalogs_main.html



This is momentous news (at least as far as I am concerned). No affiliation (other than my own rather idiosyncratic enjoyment of vintage catalogs!).

Thought this group would like to know.

That's pretty cool. I'm also a sucker for those old catalogs. Thanks for the link!

cnh

[mhardy6647]

The Allied catalogs are excellent resources as they (IMO) carried a broader array of both consumer equipment and components than did R/S, and they did so for a longer time. The irony, of course, is that Allied's consumer electronics business, in effect, lost the war to Tandy (R/S) in 1971.

[mhardy6647]

[wkjeffers]

all pic's from your collection?

[mhardy6647]

past and present

"collection" makes the junk in my basement sound like it's something other than what it mostly is - junk ;-)

EDIT: most of the really nice stuff (e.g., the Garrard 301 and Thorens TD-124 a few posts above) are not mine; just stuff I lust after and photographed at some point in time :-)

[gdb]

The "sneezing radio" cracked me up !

http://www.wimp.com/radiosneezed/

[Kenneth Swauger]

Here's a photo of a really good condition Fisher 400-C stereo preamp. It needed a new on/off switch with is a little tricky since it is attached to the end of the volume control. It is connected to a rotating armature that is part of the volume control shaft. There isn't much room to maneuver so getting the old switch off required dismantling the front assembly. I also added a ground wire connection so more recent turntables could be grounded. Then I did a THD measurement and was impressed by how low the distortion was.
Enjoy, Ken

[cnh]

Can't seem to load the second pic?

The first shot looks like something from Gilliam's Brazil, "have you upgraded your Duct work lately, Central Services can help!"

cnh

[Kenneth Swauger]

Anyone else have a problem?
I know what you mean about the "plumbing" look, in fact the complete assembly wasn't what I would call "neat-as-a-pin". More of the "dead bug" style as ham radio guys call a jumble. But, I do have to say any wiring that carried AC was run through a metal shield (you can see it in the photo) flexible tube. This is done on lab gear to isolate AC from the rest of the circuitry. I've thought of running copper tubing through a component and feeding the AC wires through. I don't know if the old style flexible tubing is still around.

[ViperZ]

Both pics work fine for me.

[soundfreak1]

2265b

[mhardy6647]

2265B, is it?

[soundfreak1]

Thay be it. Sounds as good as it looks too.

[hertz9753]

I told this guy he should post over here. No luck so far.

http://www.overclock.net/t/458907/oc...#post_19324662