Revamp Garrard 301, keep Oracle V or move along?

first, you can't go wrong whichever. the Oracle V is quite a good tt. your 301 is quite the beauty too. nice job on the plinth. it does not get much better than the Io Sig.

if i were you i would find another arm board for your Garrard and mount the SME V on it with the Koetsu RSP. this should tell you quite a bit about which tt rocks your world better. my opinion is that your Rega arm is holding back the 301.

personally; i have a Garrard 301 with custom Steve Dobbins (about 90 pound constrained layer) plinth, a Triplaner, the Kokomo bearing upgrade, and i use the Loricraft PSU 301 AR power supply. i did have the Koetsu RSP on it until recently. it was a killer combination! my opinion is that the Oracle V would not be in the same league with a fully optimized 301.....but i'm guessing a little......i do think your Quads would sing with the energy from a fully tweaked 301.

my only concern would be the combination of the Koetsu RSP, the SME V and the Garrard. all three tend to have a bit of mid-bass fullness (the Garrard more a general roundness--particularly from what i hear about the grease model of the 301) and the combo might be too much of a good thing. i think the SME/RSP combo works with the leanness of the Oracle V. the neutrality of the Triplaner was the balance in my system.

synergy is always key to musical magic.

i know you asked questions i'm not answering but the first thing is to settle on which tt to focus on; then you get into where that goes.

Nkj, thanks for the kind comments.

Steve's e-mail address is vetterone@msn.com.

i have not yet had a 12" arm in my system. Steve is nearing completion of my Technics SP-10 Mk3 plinth and i'm leaning toward the 12" SME 312s for it initially (Albert Porter's feedback has been influential also).

the Triplaner i think is 10.5 inches.

the more i read about the pro's and con's of 12" arms the less i'm feeling a need to go that way.

i will have room for 4 arms and cartridges plus the Rockport. sorry to say my budget won't allow for all the cartridges and arms i would like......for quite awhile (i would love to add an Aesthetix phono stage too when budget permits).

since my Garrard is 50hz/220v i have only heard it with my Loricraft UPS 301 AR.....although i understand it makes a considerable difference in the performance. i certainly like how it sounds but have no context of not using it.

obviously it plugs into my 60hz/110v power grid already.

Jweiss; will my Loricraft power supply be upgradable to the new version?

thanks.

Jonathan; thanks for the response, i appreciate it.

if i am reading your post correctly it seems that what your 'new' version will offer is a simplified and less expensive version of what i have (with the current UPS 301 AR) with equal performance. what will be lacking is the adjustability for certain unique speeds.

then at the end you add that you are anticipating a big improvement in the sound. is that expected improvement over not using the Loricraft at all or is that anticipated improvement over the current UPS 301 AR that i have.

sorry; maybe i'm just slow and thanks for putting up with my questions. i do think it's great that the 301 gets all this attention to make it better. we all gain from that.

best,

Mike

thanks Jonathan for the clarification.