Garrard 401

Like a few other "oldies", such as the Thorens TD-124, the Quad ESL57 or Garrard's earlier 301, the 401 still is going strong. Since 1998 sustained by Loricraft in the UK, who managed to buy the rights back from the Brazilian Gradiente to re-use the glorious name and even produce a successor to the 401. 25 years after the fact :)
The 401 is a pleasure to look at, too, with more than one similarity with JBL's contemporary amps - 60s design at its best.

When most of the european audio crowd was looking elsewhere, the japanese audiophiles were buying the aforementioned units for a song, thus preceding the much later EU and US re-discovery of these units. So what happened during the 1970s' painstaking and vivid research and the 1980s over-engineering madness if 1950s designs still rule? I wonder...

Even if a 501 is too much money for most who'd love to use one daily, be SURE to thoroughly visit Loricraft's website as it does show what live-audio-made-by-real-people can be like, unlike the yearly chip swapping most brands have now fallen into.