HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

Me again. I thought the ideal set up for my KEFs would be a vintage Garrard SP25 that a mate found in his loft.

The problem is that it all works fine but the arm won't travel to the centre of the LP. It just sticks 3/4 the way in.

Any ideas or help or banter gratefully accepted. I'm desperate to replace my 1210.

Apprentice wrote:Me again. I thought the ideal set up for my KEFs would be a vintage Garrard SP25 that a mate found in his loft.

The problem is that it all works fine but the arm won't travel to the centre of the LP. It just sticks 3/4 the way in.

Any ideas or help or banter gratefully accepted. I'm desperate to replace my 1210.

Large hammer

Well goddamn........Welcome back Apprentice.

Replace a 1210 with a Garrard.......
You are obviously a first year apprentice.

Sandman wrote:

Apprentice wrote:Me again. I thought the ideal set up for my KEFs would be a vintage Garrard SP25 that a mate found in his loft.

The problem is that it all works fine but the arm won't travel to the centre of the LP. It just sticks 3/4 the way in.

Any ideas or help or banter gratefully accepted. I'm desperate to replace my 1210.

Large hammer

Overkil, a small hammer will do the job, and sometimes you just have to blow on them and they fall apart

I guess that's why it was in the loft.It was my first deck,but never had a problem with it.Sounds like something has got the wrong side of itself in the auto return mech. You will have to pull it apart and have a look..Good luck.

jammy395 wrote:Well goddamn........Welcome back Apprentice.

Replace a 1210 with a Garrard.......
You are obviously a first year apprentice.

The very first deck I had back in 1974 was a Garrard SP25. It cost an entire months wages, and when I bought it and got it home, it was only then that I realised that I needed some other bits. An amp and some speakers to be precise. FFS, my Dad's gramophone
came as a complete unit!

Anyway, my mate came over last weekend to borrow my chainsaw and saw the hifi set up. He mentioned that he had an old Garrard deck that his son wanted. "That must be an SP25" I said and it was left that.

However, an hour ago he knocked at the door clutching this piece of history, totally agog at my knowledge. "It IS an SP25" he said "How did you know?".

I just gave him a knowledgeable smirk, which was unfortunate because he now thinks I can fix it.

Just goes to show, one man's apprentice is another man's expert.

Is this a wind-up?

There are dozens of threads on Vinyl Engine in the Garrard room and the 'Audio/HiFi' room on the UK Vintage Radio site - http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/foru ... 468bb&f=14

ALL old auto Garrards (especially the Autoslim-based models of which the SP25 series was the best) and more than a few Duals now, suffer from dried and now gummy grease and oil. The service manuals can be downloaded from Vinyl Engine once you've signed up and these will tell you how to carefully remove the platter and main auto cam. On this cam are the trip pawls which will need to be removed, ALL old oil and goo removed (leave any grease in the underside main 'groove' for now) and reassembled 'dry,' so the pawls rattle like a tambourine if the cam is shaken. Follow the numerous threads on cleaning the mech underneath, lube the motor etc. and be pleasantly surprised how fair the SP25 can sound with a suitable cartridge (AT95E is one option and very early ones love the Stanton 500 too, in whatever version and the Ortofon OM pro and GT sound lively and crisp in these decks).

Here's my 60mk2 (auto version of SP25 II - mine has the SL motor retro-fitted)





... and its ancestor, the AT6, which started the collection off...

Bloody heck,i've just looked at pictures of the underneath of one on that web site.Looks just like the operating levers on a Massey Ferguson tractor hydraulic system,still the russians went into space with a computer like that..

All that lovely over-grease.....

That's not a REAL autochanger - this is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ouqCsZUx0

The Garrard is a tractor, this is a Swiss watch.