SMD Acoustics Stainless Steel Platter Upgraded Platter for Garrard 301/401

The SMD Acoustics Stainless Steel Platter Upgrade platter is CNC machined from solid stainless steel to very tight tolerances better than two thousandths of an inch. The finished platter can be supplied in a number of finishes including an attractive machined finish, satin black or special colours on request.

Solid stainless steel is high mass, non magnetic and free of any defects such as porosity or other inclusions and thus perfect for a turntable platter. For reasons of cost (solid a stainless steel is very very expensive and creates a lot of waste during machining) the original Garrard platter was cast aluminium and the casting process inevitably suffered from porosity and flaws within the casting these coupled with casting tolerances that can not easily produce a consistent thickness means the platter was not in balance which required the drilling of holes in the platter to try and balance it.

The SMD Acoustics platter is as perfectly balanced as can be achieved with modern state of the art machinery and selection of the best material. This avoids the excessive vibration caused by a badly balanced rotating platter. Such a platter can cause unacceptable levels of noise and detrimental effects on sound quality.

The extra diameter is 7mm over that of a standard platter (If the Garrard 401 has the raised strobe the platter will be the Garrard standard 297mm Diameter) and the upgraded platter has approximately 7Kgs of extra mass, this greatly improves the platters inertia and results in added bass delivery, stability of imaging etc. basically it has so much energy in rotation that it takes a lot to stop it spinning. The theory has been well employed over several years and oversize platters have been used by the likes of Shindo for his 301.

We can also supply uprated bearings from SMD Acoustics in stainless steel or brass (oil not grease). A solid brass platter is also available and like the stainless steel platter we recommend using with our uprated bearing due to its high mass.

The platter looks perfect on the 301 and 401 the extra 7mm where applicable is visually unnoticeable unlike some oversize platters which look odd and can interfere with the speed adjusting control on the 301. This platter will fit your 301 or 401 without any modification.

Platters made to order so please allow 4-6 working weeks dependant on finish selected.

Reviews

Malcolm Littler Customer Review