Jeffrey,
Why do you need someone to set it up for you? If you have a Garrard 301/401 in a solid plinth, then it's not that difficult, especially if you've NOT got a unipivot arm.
Is your arm mounted yet? If not, measure the pivot to spindle distance (given on your tonearm spec sheet) from the spindle of the platter to the armboard. Drill the appropriate size hole for your arm into the armboard. Mount the arm.
Mount the cartridge into the headshell (don't worry about the headshell tags yet). Balance the arm into neutral first and then set the VTF (vertical tracking force) to the suggested setting on the cart spec sheet.
Then use the cartridge alignment protractor (provided with the arm) - tweak the cart in the headshell until the cartridge sides are parallel with the lines on the protractor (with the stylus tip on the target) at both sets of lines on the protractor.
Put the cartridge tags onto the cartridge - red to red, white to white etc (colour coded usually).
Reset the VTF, now that the cart is correctly aligned.
Now adjust the arm height (on the arm pillar) so that the arm tube is approx horizontal to the record. Lowering the pivot makes the sound bass heavy and muddy, lifting it makes it bright and thin. Adjust until you like the sound.
Recheck the VTF.
Now set the anti-skate (bias). As a starter, if you have dial, set it to the same as the VTF. If not, take a blank sided record (ie no grooves) and set the bias until the stylus drifts slowly towards the middle. Alternatively, you can do it using a test record like the current HiFi News test record.
All the time, use your ears. When it's right, it snaps into place. You can hear when it's wrong.
Hope that helps. It's like all things. It's not really rocket science. Good luck
Charlie
