Garrard 70 Mk II

Garrard's "aristocrat of record playing units" - a transcription-grade automatic that put a quarter-gram click-stop pressure gauge on the tonearm and anti-skating in the buyer's hands.

Overview

Garrard built its reputation on the automatic turntable, and the 70 Mk II sat near the top of that line. The British press called it the aristocrat of record playing units, the fullest expression of the automatic-turntable idea the company had launched with the original Type A. That came straight from the period coverage. HiFi-Stereo (October 1966, p.10) described the 70 Mk II in exactly those terms, as the refined end of a family that ran from the workingman's SP25 up through the Lab 80.

The real story of the 70 Mk II is the tonearm, and the way Garrard attacked stylus pressure. Cartridges grew more compliant and tracked lighter, and setting the right force by eye became guesswork. Garrard's answer was a built-in precision pressure gauge. It was worked out first on the Type A and the AT6, then brought to its "logical fulfillment" on the 70 Mk II. The setting is made by click stops calibrated at quarter-gram intervals. The adjustment is both audible and visible, so a user can dial in a fraction of a gram and hear the detent confirm it. HiFi-Stereo (October 1966, p.6) noted that the Lab 80 carried a more precise vernier variation of the same counterweight idea, but the click-stop gauge on the 70 Mk II was the practical, repeatable version.

Anti-skating was the other headline. Any offset-angle cartridge pulls the arm inward toward the label and presses the stylus against the inner groove wall. That causes right-channel distortion and uneven record wear. Garrard's advertising for the period is blunt about the stakes, and the company fitted its patented adjustable anti-skating control to the 70 Mk II alongside the Lab 80 Mk II and 60 Mk II. The design is simple on purpose: a sliding counterweight on a calibrated arm, set to match the stylus pressure reading, with no springs or delicate balancing devices to drift out of calibration. Garrard's marketing billed the arrangement as remaining accurate permanently. Take that claim with the usual grain of salt, but the mechanical logic is sound.

Underneath the arm sits a turntable cast of non-magnetic metal and dynamically balanced on Garrard's own equipment. This is the "sandwich" construction the company introduced on the Type A and carried across the Lab 80 Mk II, 70 Mk II and 60 Mk II. The oversized platter is meant to act as a flywheel and smooth out any variation in motor speed. The balanced, non-magnetic casting is there to keep rumble and hum down. Garrard's own copy from the period is candid that the three models differ somewhat in construction even though they share the approach, so the platter on the 70 Mk II is a cousin of the Lab 80's rather than an identical part.

By Garrard's own account, the 70 Mk II was not a styling exercise. The 60 Mk II borrowed the 70 Mk II's large trim ring and got a new mat, and Garrard was quick to say that appearance was "only a minor virtue" next to performance.

Period reception treated the 70 Mk II as a serious piece of engineering rather than a convenience appliance. HiFi-Stereo (October 1966, p.18) pointed readers toward the 70 Mk II as the latest version of Garrard's "completely rola=mechanism" - a typo-riddled OCR rendering, but the intent is clear - and urged buyers to inspect the underside of a Garrard turntable to appreciate the metal craftsmanship.

Original pricing for the 70 Mk II was £22 (offered new and boxed at £12.17.6 plus postage). Production years and full specifications are not given. The fact sheet for this model is thin, and the page reflects that. What the period record does establish is where the 70 Mk II sat in Garrard's thinking: at the top of the automatic range, the model whose trim ring and mat the cheaper 60 Mk II borrowed, and one of three Garrards to carry the patented anti-skating control that the company believed set its automatics apart.