Garrard 401 Turntable – My Plinth Design
A bit of a diversion from music reviews!
I’ve had some people ask for some more information about one of the turntables listed at my About page. The plinth for my Garrard 401 is made of solid aluminum parts (mill finish) and it can be disassembled easily and transported. Normally people have concerns with resonance issues making turntable plinths from metals (favoring wood, slate or other dense non-metallic materials). I’ve had absolutely NO issues with noise or resonance with this turntable plinth design, and there are even ways to “deaden” the metal if it’s even needed.
Parts are attached with threaded Allen wrench studs and the three “feet” at the bottom are threaded to be adjustable. The top plate “floats” on four loose brass pins (at the corners) and the top is separated from the base with soft rubber washers. The design is built around a Thomas Schick tonearm–a REALLY great tone arm, I love it. The solid cylinder of aluminum supporting the tonearm is isolated from the turntable deck by 1/16″. Here are some photos of the design with dimensions. I’m sure it can be adapted for use with other tonearms. If you decide to build one yourself, you’re welcome to use this design, but if you post about it somewhere, please credit “wajobu” as the designer. I wrote about this a few years back at the audio forum audiokarma.org.
Keep vinyl alive!
wajobu 