Garrard 5 HF

At left you see an edited picture form an advertisement in a record collector's magazine from 1963. It is the beautifully designed Garrard 5 HF record player on a matching plinth. The deck has a heavy arm, suitable for a ceramic or crystal pick up. But also low compliance moving magnet types of phono cartridges can be used. The turntable has 4 speeds: 16 2/3, 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM. There is a knob to adjust the speed if there is a deviation. This facility is especially important when playing old shellac records which were not always cut at 78 rpm, but at 80 rpm or whatever speed the manufacturer of the early days adopted. The single record player 4 HF is similar to No. 5. There were two versions of the 4 HF. One was just a plain portable record player. The second version was a portable gramophone as it had amplification.

Portable Mono

This is the mono edition of the Music Master. The lid contains 2 loudspeaker units. One for the low and mid frequencies and one for the high frequencies. There are three potentiometers. At left is the knob for setting the volume. The second from left is for adjusting the treble. The third one controls the bass.

Portable Stereo

This is the stereo version of the Music Master. It consists of two portable units. One contains the two loudspeakers and the other one has the turntable. The advertisement (from which the image at the left is taken) talked about four speakers to impress prospective buyers. In fact there were the two low-mid units and the two high frequency drivers.

For Old Mono Lp Recordings

These Garrard recordplayers have an automatic shut off which can be disabled by pressing the small red button next to the arm base marked "non automatic".
Although this turntable was designed for turning vinyl long playing records of all kinds, it is (in my view) not advised to play modern pressings from the nineteen seventies, eighties and nineties. This machine is more suitable for the old, thick mono Lp discs and a few early stereos. I always use the Garrard for playing the earliest nineteen fifties Remington records which do not always sound too well on a modern turntable, but, amazingly, get their full impact on this efficient machine.

When my dentist called me in, he noticed that I was reading an old issue of "LA NOUVELLE REVUE DU SON", the excellent French magazine, written and edited by Jean Hiraga, Patrick Vercher, and other quality audio journalists. My dentist said: "Lp is no good. 78 rpm shellac records are the only true quality recordings."

78 RPM Fanatics Love This Machine

Many music lovers have evolved with the market and are used to listening to stereo long playing records and to the Digital Audio Compact Disc. A few have experienced the sound of 78 rpm direct to disc recordings from before World War Two. No tape recorder was involved. A range of cutting lathes were installed in ghe monitoring room or close to the performers. The music was cut into the laquers on the spot.
When I was 11 years old I bought a second hand portable HMV 101 wind up gramophone and any record, be it classical, pop or jazz, would do, as long as it could be played on the 101 with the chrome arm and soundbox: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Warsaw Concerto, Ray Anthony, etc. But soon I switched to an old 2-speed Philips record player. In a thrift store I found old and heavy Polydor records: Alexander Brailowsky playing Chopin's Barcarolle and Oskar Fried conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Franz Liszt's Mazeppa. Specifically Chopin was extremely well recorded.

Wide Range

With the advent of the Compact Disc many people started collecting vinyl abundantly. And often they came accross old 78 rpm discs too and bought a suitable gramophone to play them. That is what happened to me also. There are various items worth listening to: Eduard van Beinum conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in The Swan of Tuonela (Sibelius), Herbert von Karajan with the same orchestra in Don Juan (Strauss), Paul van Kempen with the Berlin Philharmonic (1936) performing Les Preludes (Liszt), Withold Malcuzynski playing Chopin, Eileen Joyce on Columbia, Emil Telmányi on a 10" Tono, Ida Handel with Wieniawski's Polonaise, Yehudi Menuhin playing Mozart with his teacher George Enesco conducting, and Furtwangler, Mengelberg, etc.

Demonstration

On the lighter Philips side there are of course the stars of the nineteen fifties: Jo Stafford, Frankie Lane, Patachou, Mouloudji, etc. And jazz artists on Mercury, London, Philips, Decca.
Excellent demonstration records are the already mentioned Barcarolle by pianist Alexander Brailowsky (Polydor 35014, 1934), and Walter Gieseking playing Variations Symphoniques (César Franck) with Sir Henry Wood, on English Columbia. But also the early nineteen fifties hits and jazz records - though not direct cuts - have a flabbergasting presence.
If you want to access the mechanism, pulley and motor, you will have to take off the spring washer which holds the platter in place. Ask someone to tick lightly with the handle of a screw driver on the spindle. And than you will be able to lift the platter.

The Mechanism

Even after 50 years of dedicated service, the mechanism is still working perfectly. (I will add pictures of the 301 and 401 in due time so a comparison can be made between the 4 (5) HF and the legendary Garrard transcription units.) The fact that the platter is set into motion by means of an idler wheel, and the materials used for the construction of the machine, result in a very pleasant and natural sound with the appropriate weight in the lower mid frequency band. Note: I will add some explanation about the handles, strips and switches at a later date.
The alternative for playing 78s would be a His Master's Voice re-entrant horn (HMV 202). The advantage of the Garrard is that you avoid the sharp steel needles. Garrard released one of the first stereo pick ups, the Model GCS10. The model 4 HF came into production in 1957 as the Loricraft/ Garrard501 website says. And: "The Model 4HF was in production until 1965, by which time about 100,000 units had been produced". So it is not unlikely that you will find one.

2-Way Loudspeaker System

Simplicity makes sense: a two way speaker system in a quasi open baffle. An oval driver for the low and mid frequencies and a high frequency unit. The addition of the back panel improves the dynamics and gives a good reproduction of the low frequencies in relation to a firm mid band. Positioning the lid with the speakers closer to a corner makes it possible to find the best sound balance.
The speakers are driven by a small, 5 Watt valve amplifier which also adds to the harmonious sound.

6 dB Slope For The Tweeter

The capacity of the electrolytic condenser is 8 uF. The high frequency unit is a sealed unit and is connected in parallel to the low-mid driver. Only one capacitor in series provides a 6 dB slope, ensuring a correct phase. Do not swap it for a polypropylene capacitor. You may loose some of the speed of the sound. And polypropylene will influence the dynamics and the frequency curve.

The Front-End is Important

Choosing the best suitable ceramic cartridge or crystal pick up is of course important. Various makes do come to mind. Ronette and Acos are the bes known. At left the Merul and at right a simple Ronette.

The Scale

For the 301, 401, 4 and 5 HF, the Garrard engineers designed the SPG3 Stylus Pressure Gauge. It was packed in a small cardboard box with instructions. For todays standards with precise measuring of a cartridge's playing weight with a digital scale, the increments of 0.5 gram of the SPG3 result in a rather rough adjustment. In the early Lp days, playing weights of 4 to 10 gr. were possible. For 78 rpm shellac records a down force of 9 gr. can be necessary. In that case the best sound is emperically found, as the Garrard scale's indication is 5 gr. maximum. For that a small brass weight of 5 gr. was supplied to calibrate the gauge.