Show off your Turntable

The Lab 80 was built to be the best automatic turntable Garrard could build, and was referred to as an automatic transcription turntable. It is heavy built, with close to a 6 pound platter and a largish super-quiet motor with a clever rubber isolation system to reduce rumble. I replaced the platter ball bearings with ceramic ones. No rumble coming through the speakers. It was fully competitive with the Dual's of it's day, and still holds its own today. Biggest drawback was the fixed head-shell, making it impossible to align thin-line types of stylus shapes. I got around this by making a thin aluminum adapter that lets me move the cartridge ahead a bit and twist a bit for perfect Baerwald alignment. I'm using a Shure V15 with hyper-elliptical stylus with great results. Thinking about buying a Micro-Ridge stylus for it when finances are caught up.

The Lab 80 will keep me very happy until the day my ship (which I never launched) comes in and I can buy a Garrard 301/401 or a Thorens TD124.

Dave

hurdy_gurdyman said:

The Lab 80 was built to be the best automatic turntable Garrard could build, and was referred to as an automatic transcription turntable. It is heavy built, with close to a 6 pound platter and a largish super-quiet motor with a clever rubber isolation system to reduce rumble. I replaced the platter ball bearings with ceramic ones. No rumble coming through the speakers. It was fully competitive with the Dual's of it's day, and still holds its own today. Biggest drawback was the fixed head-shell, making it impossible to align thin-line types of stylus shapes. I got around this by making a thin aluminum adapter that lets me move the cartridge ahead a bit and twist a bit for perfect Baerwald alignment. I'm using a Shure V15 with hyper-elliptical stylus with great results. Thinking about buying a Micro-Ridge stylus for it when finances are caught up.

The Lab 80 will keep me very happy until the day my ship (which I never launched) comes in and I can buy a Garrard 301/401 or a Thorens TD124.

Dave

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Yeah I can’t believe how popular those tables have become. It’s insane. To think i just sold them off for a few hundred dollars like they were junk. At the time nobody was collecting these much. They just didn’t have a lot of value.

Is a 301 any better than your Lab 80 or just more collectible?

A 301 is made for broadcast use and is designed to run under heavy use. However, I doubt they'd sound any better. You do get to choose your own arm with a 301/401/501.

hurdy_gurdyman said:

A 301 is made for broadcast use and is designed to run under heavy use. However, I doubt they'd sound any better. You do get to choose your own arm with a 301/401/501.

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That’s what I figured. I knew it was a true broadcast transcription turntable but making something HD doesn’t mean it’s any better sounding. I recall revox had two versions of their CD player, an industrial model and a domestic consumer model. They sounded identical, but the industrial model was physically better built. The only reason for a consumer to buy the heavier one was it was cheaper on the used market. In Highschool I bought one from a flea market and alter acquired my grandfathers consumer version. I could never hear a difference. When i eventually was able to take measurements myself I did so and couldn’t measure a difference either.

While turntables are electromechanical devices, I bet the performance is still pretty similar.

For what it’s worth, the TD124 isn’t nearly as heavy duty as the 301. The motor seemed lighter weight and physically smaller as well as less torque. I was shocked when i first got my hands on the 301. I was always a bit of a Thorens snob until that happened. I’m not saying the 301 sounded better, but it was certainly the better made device in my opinion. The Thorens had some engineering quirks reflecting better refinement, but it felt like it was engineered to within an inch of its life. Everything was just good enough to work and no better.

Matthew J Poes said:

While turntables are electromechanical devices, I bet the performance is still pretty similar.

For what it’s worth, the TD124 isn’t nearly as heavy duty as the 301. The motor seemed lighter weight and physically smaller as well as less torque. I was shocked when i first got my hands on the 301. I was always a bit of a Thorens snob until that happened. I’m not saying the 301 sounded better, but it was certainly the better made device in my opinion. The Thorens had some engineering quirks reflecting better refinement, but it felt like it was engineered to within an inch of its life. Everything was just good enough to work and no better.

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The white paper on the Garrard Lab 80, written by the engineer who designed the 401, states that it was designed to be the best turntable they could make first, then the automation part was added.
My Rec-O-Kut Rondine B12 was a direct competitor to the Garrard 301. In a 1960's Audio Magazine shoot-out, the ROK beat the Garrard for home usage. I hope someday to afford an SME III tonearm for mine. However, I'm addicted to the automatic tonearm return and shut-off of the Lab 80.

Dave