Garrard 401 Bearing Up-grade
 

Got a small profit share from work so decided to up-grade my 401.

Ordered the SMD Acoustics Garrard 401 Stainless Oil Bearing & Spindle Upgrade from England.

The communication with Shaun at Peakhifi was excellent- he makes the up-grade 'to order' & had it done in 4 days & posted to me- and I received it just over a week later- fantastic service.

As per the photos attached, the new bearing is heavy, solid & well machined & is significantly more robust than the original.

Took all of 10 minutes to replace the old with the new- and did a test run with my mono AT33MONO/LP cartridge on my well-loved mono pressing of Desmond Dekkers The Israelites, then plugged in my Stereo ART9 cartridge & played Blind Faiths album.

While I was expecting improvement I was gob-smacked at the difference. Subjectively, bass response was an octave lower, the leading edge transients were knife-edged, there was more there 'there' & macro dynamics were increased- the sound of the 'not yet run in' upgrade was simply amazing.

Part of the improvement was due to 'speed stability'. The old bearing had speed fluctuations, not gross, but I was always making subtle changes to get the strobe to be 33, now its set & forget.

I cannot recommend this up-grade to 401 & 301 owners more highly- worth every cent!

Nice and the table looks excellent!

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