As many of you know, I've had 'a thing' for Garrard 301 based turntables going back a long time. Starting in 2004, I wrote a series of articles for Six Moons about my first Garrard Project player system. In that first Garrard Project my plan was to keep it simple and as low cost as I could, to match my budget at the time.
Fast forward to 2015: My goal was a little more ambitious for my latest Garrard project, the Garrard Project 2015.
This time I wanted to build a hot-rod Garrard 301 based player system that could pretty much go toe-to-toe with Garrard 301 'super-tables' like the Shindo Garrard 301 player system, or the Artisan Fidelity Garrard 301 Statement player system, perhaps the two most notable examples of the vintage-based Garrard 'super-table' genre.
But here's the kicker: I wanted to knock on the door of those vintage-based Garrard super-table's performance, but I wanted to do it for about half their price.
To accomplish that goal I recruited Garrard specialist Ray Clark of Classic Turntable Company, bespoke analog maven Christopher Thornton of Artisan Fidelity, and tonearm craftsman Thomas Schick.
To make short work of a long article, I succeeded. Spectacularly! The resulting hot-rod Garrard Project 2015 player system had stunning tangible presence, timbral realism, vivid tonal colors, and such strong emotional impact that it was truly awe inspiring, and riveting to listen to.
The resulting Garrard Project 2015 turned out better than I could have ever imagined, and I am absolutely thrilled by both its beauty and performance.
So my Writers' Choice Award for the Garrard Project 2015 goes to the world-class team of Christopher Thornton and Thomas Schick for making my Garrard dreams come true!