Shindo Garrard 301
by Jules Coleman

The 301 uses an "eddy current brake" which keeps the motor loaded all the time. This load allows the motor to ignore the more miniscule changes in friction from the grooves. The eddy current brake allows for a +/- 2% speed change.

The 301 is a high torque design. It starts right up and gets to speed in a hurry and maintains the speed it reaches. The problem with higher torque motors is that they are typically noisier than low torque designs. Add to that the fact that the heavy motor is suspended and a source of potential vibrations and unwanted resonances and you have a good idea why so much hinges on the design of a proper plinth. Without a good one, a 301 of any sort might get your mojo working, but nuance and refinement will be lost through smearing caused by uninvited vibrations.

The design may seem pretty basic, but Terry Sullivan of Loricraft, designers of a table they refer to as the 501, told me that starting from scratch today one would have to invest between one and two million dollars in machinery and parts alone to produce a Garrard 301: that is, a single 301. You would have to sell quite a few tables to recoup that investment. Compare that to what it would cost you in parts to put together a belt drive table of any sort starting from scratch.

When outfitted for home use, most 301s were typically matched with 12” arms. These longer than customary arms were originally designed for playback of 16" transcription discs in studios. Among the most interesting 12” arms originally matched with the 301 were the Ortofon RMA-309 (309mm), RF-297 (297mm), EMT 997 (297mm) and Neumann 25. The original Ortofon RF-297 was also used on the EMT 927, quite a table in its own right.

It was also common to fit one of these arms with an Ortofon SPU (Stereo Pick Up) Classic. These cartridges date back to the beginning of the stereo era. Originally a conical stylus was used to read mono grooves. Later in the stereo era elliptical, fine line, hyper-elliptical, Shibata, and other so-called exotic shapes began to appear in the hopes of pulling more resolution from the grooves. The SPU Classic continued to employ the conical stylus, which, like the 12” arm, is out of favor in the mainstream press. The contemporary press tends to prefer exotic stylus shapes that, to my ears anyway, are partly responsible for the edgy, tizzy, CD like lit-up quality of most modern day low output moving coil cartridges.

And now there is….

Distributed in North America by Tone Imports, the Shindo/Garrard 301 begins with the basic table, and then replaces the standard bearing with a much more substantial one that is fitted to much tighter tolerances, and the platter with a much larger and heavier one that incorporates as well the Shindo mat which can be purchased separately for any table. When I first purchased the Shindo/Garrard I could not afford the bearing and platter upgrades, and so I listened quite contentedly to the table for nearly a year without them. I secured the upgrades in the middle of my review of the DeVore Silverback Reference speakers, and the effect of the upgrades was immediate and obvious: a deeper, more authoritative and weightier bottom end. These upgrades take the punchy and lively 301 and give it an extension and authority that is otherwise somewhat compromised. More importantly, the bearing and platter upgrades reveal a level of resolution in the nether regions than I had previously been aware of.

The downside was that the upgrades made me even more skeptical of the judgments of reviewers than I had been to that point. I just don’t know how a reviewer can be confident of the ultimate judgments he or she makes about a product when so much of its performance potential is compromised by associated equipment and listening environment. As an example, if you have any doubts about the impact the room makes just go to CES sometime where the rooms invariably set an upper limit on just how good a system can sound, leading to systems sounding more alike than different, and to smaller speakers performing significantly better, at least in relative terms, than larger ones.

Shindo outfits his 301 with the Mersault tone-arm designed on the model of the RF-297. The Mersault or Shindo RF-773 arm may be modeled on the RF-297, but is in fact built from scratch. The arm geometry is expanded to 309mm, features a better bearing system, closer tolerances throughout and better wiring. Shindo can also upgrade existing RF-297's, RMA-309's and RMG-309's with better bearings, arm base, spring and wiring as well as replacing the internal damper. The Shindo RF-773 Mersault is dynamically balanced. Tone-arm cable is hand made silver and terminated to the tone-arm with a low mass connection system.

The arm is then outfitted with a modified Ortofon SPU Classic. Shindo takes either the customer’s existing SPU or a new Classic A and completely modifies it by changing the damper, cantilever, stylus, coil and modifying the suspension and magnet. The modified Shindo SPU tracks at 2.8g versus the stock tracking at between 3.5 and 4.5g. The Shindo SPU can track up to 100u on a test LP which equals or exceeds the tracking performance of a Shure V15, widely acknowledged to be a tracking champion.

The DIY world is replete with Johnny-come-lately designers of plinths for the 301, and fine woodworkers can punch out a ‘plinth’ in a couple of hours after spending less than 1/40th the time with the Garrard table that Shindo has. There is an incredible number of factors that go into making a plinth for a 301 and the number that have been tried over the years is testament to both the difficulty of doing so in a way that allows one to extract all the table has to offer and to importance of designing a proper plinth.

Shindo has been playing with plinth designs since the 1960's and the current version has been in production and unchanged since nearly the beginning of Shindo Laboratory in the 1970s. The greatest challenges in plinth design are two fold: matching the arm ‘pod’ to the platter (a non-trivial concern that I have seen completely ignored in two recent plinth designs) and handling the unwanted resonances that are associated with its idler drive, direct connection, high torque motor design.

To kill or not to kill….

The key to resonance control with the 301 is to minimize resonances without taking the life out of the table. Unsurprisingly, some designers have gone the route of heavy doses of MDF. Done correctly, such approaches succeed in revealing more of the detail and nuance the table is capable of, but always at some cost to ultimate dynamics, energy, and persuasiveness. The Loricraft 501 is an excellent example of this approach and it sounds very good if just a bit more restrained than some 301s with which I am familiar. Bad versions of this approach simply take the life out of the table, choking the sound as if it were taking the oxygen from the room.

Instead of using MDF, Shindo hand builds his plinth from laminated cherry wood that is based on layers of specified dimensions that are then glued together. Not one piece of hardwood, which would be a disaster in terms of transmitting vibrations; but many pieces of defined dimensions glued together and constructed as one would a musical instrument – with a similar attention to voicing and tuning. The aim is to secure even-handed, broadband noise reduction over the entire frequency range. The goal is not to eliminate all vibrations, but to stave off the effects of an uneven reduction in resonances.

These two approaches to designing plinths for the 301 coincide completely with two familiar approaches to loudspeaker design. On the one hand, there are the take no prisoners, kill all vibrations advocates. The most famous of this group is probably Wilson Audio. I am currently reviewing the wonderful Peak Consult Zoltan which appears to follow a similar path. When such designs succeed, these loudspeakers are able to present music in a focused, sharply outlined form, highlighted by a see-through midrange, and upper registers with lots of apparent detail that can be absolutely captivating. This is not necessarily the sound I would choose for myself, but it is the benchmark for the very best that contemporary designs have to offer. When the kill all resonance approach fails – as often it does – we get an etched treble and lightweight midrange both tied to a lethargic bottom end with a reseeding midbass.

In contrast, minimally braced and damped speakers do not ignore vibrations altogether. Their cabinets and the materials from which they are constructed are designed to absorb vibrations evenly over the entire frequency range. When such designs succeed, the speakers sound harmonically rich, dynamic and alive; listening to them is often described as fun, not necessarily as nuanced or resolute. When they fail, such speakers tend to sound inappropriately reverberant, nasal and unfocused.

A very few designers are capable of extracting detail, refinement and nuance from loudspeakers that follow this path. Last month, I reported on Keith Aschenbrenner’s SoloVox speaker system. His is one such design. In fact, the longer I live with the SoloVox the more amazed I am by their resolution, dynamic realism, and above all else their ease and natural way with music.

Shindo falls into this latter school. He seeks broadband, even-handed resonance control that minimizes but does not eliminate all vibrations. This approach walks a fine line – trying to kill vibrations without sucking the life out of the music -- and is obviously very hard to pull off successfully. Shindo has been employing this approach in all his components from the outset. I have heard its effects most in the turntable and the Latour loudspeaker, which is something of a marvel in every respect. I remember what my friend and fellow reviewer, Paul Candy, said to me the first time he heard the Latour loudspeaker: “That’s the first thing I buy when I win the lottery.” I don’t know that I could wait that long, and hope I won’t have to.