Which is the best Dual and why?

I was working at a company making aluminum cans at the time. Working day shift. Got home, went to put the key and the door and it just swung open, door jam shattered. When I saw what was gone I was stunned beyond words. We think the neighbors "drug upped" kid did it, but could never prove it.

 

The apartment next doors on my floor was unoccupied and its door was not properly locked. The burglar went in and punched a hole on the closet wall to get into my apartment.

 

Is DUAL the company still around?

 

I'm glad to see the 701 get some love here!

 

My 1229Q was a heck of a turntable. Heavy, with a nice spring suspension and a tonearm with a nice action that was easy to cue. It sounded great, pitch wasn't as spot-on as many modern tables. This possibly was have been due to uneven wear on the idler wheel, causing wow and flutter. The pitch fluctuations were most of the time imperceptible. The only examples I can think of involved quiet piano music.

The table itself proved pretty reliable over the years, but the record changer spindle (which I never used) started acting up, causing the the turntable to stop when it inexplicably thought it was time to flip the record, and making it hard to remove records after they were done playing.

When the table finally quit on me when it was approximately 20 years old, I opened it up to diagnose the problem and was confronted by a dizzying array of springs, plastic gears, and (of course) the idler wheel. There were a lot of complex mechanical parts in the table, and I was quite surprised that the table was as reliable as it was.

 

I run 5 DUAL TTs for a few years now, two 1219s, 1229, 1218 and a 701 - ZERO problems. And I LOVE the AUTOMATIC function because I can get back to my listening place in time BEFORE the music starts - before the DUALs I had a Pro-Ject RPM9 (with Reson Reca cartridge)- now that was a rip-off IMO - expensive compared to what you are getting and it gave me boring CD like sound ......

 

Yes. A great table. But I still prefer my idler wheel driven 1219 and 1218 to the 701 ........

 

In which way do you think they are "over-rated" ? How they sound ? How much they do cost ? How reliable they are ( guess being still used after 30+ years ain't too bad) ? How they look ? All of the above ? Which vintage TT at approx the same price point would you rather own ?

And I am sure a car technician would rather repair a run-of-the-mill Chrysler than a BMW or a Bentley - but which one would you rather drive ?

And I think your post isn't quite heresy, but threadcrap territory seems not too far away given the thread title

 

It's the automatic function that I don't like, for the most part, as it is needlessly over-designed and places great strain on the motor to complete the automatic cycle (you can see the platter slow down at that time). The spring that tethers the drive wheel is too long to maintain proper tension to keep the wheel against the rim of the platter (that can be modified). The biggest flaw in the automatic design is the pin that the lift mechanism presses against, it has a plastic cap that eventually falls off, rendering the lift/return useless. I also don't like having to adjust the pitch control whenever I change speeds, but that's a minor detail. They have awful cables, and the contacts in the headshells tarnish quickly after cleaning, requiring much more maintenance than most other turntables. The wires in the headshells don't age well either, getting brittle.
Speed fidelity is good with a new drive wheel, their tracking is good, the arms have a lot of free play when needed, but that's as much of a salute that I can give them. They're decent turntables, but high maintenance, from my experience, and I've worked on over 100 of them. The rim drives last longer than most of the belt drives and the direct drives.
What makes me say that they're over-rated is that people who have never had one come into my store asking for them after having been told by someone who was told by someone else that they should get one instead of any other model because there's a commonly-held belief that they are superior to most other turntables. They're not bad, but they are not above average, either. They were in 1968, but the Japanese redesigned turntables in the 1970s and justifiably took over most of the turntable market.
Duals do look nice, and with more maintenance than average, run well too.

 

I need to get my Dual 1219 working again or fix it. I stated earlier in this thread what happened. At this pint though I will probably get rid of it as-is. It's a nice table and I have listened to the needle drops I did with it and I can't believe how good they sound.

Pat

 

I remembered wrong. My Dual was a 1229, not a 1229Q--I just looked up the 1229Q and found out it is the Quadraphonic version of the 1229.

 

Fair enough. Me I love the Automatic function for reasons given above and the strain on the motor cannot be that bad, given that those TTs lasted that long. Yes the plastic cap for the automatic (The STEUERPIMPEL ) needs to be replaced every twenty years or so, but not that big a deal IMO.
The headshell contacts can be a problem, but on Ebay there are new headshells for the DUAL for around ten dollars ..... and changing those ain't a problem even for the technical impaired like me.
And one thing I really do love about DUALS is that there is virtually no measuring or tinkering or VTA or such with the cartridge - you just click it in and play away ! Wonderful !!
But the most important point is, I LOVE the sound of those things !!
And I never experienced noticeable inner groove distortion or other forms of distortion or sibilance on one of my five TTs unless the stylus was clearly worn .......

 

Run, don't walk

Because Sound matters ....

 

Oops seems I misread your post before, you want to get rid of it .... don't.
What you need ? New Headshell ? I send you one ..... Cartridge ? Can do that too ..... I mean it. Any other problems with it ?

 

The auto function is all messed up since I moved it without it being locked down. I have been given instruction on what to look for and try to fix, but I just don't have the skills. I have 2 two headshells. One the top little plastic piece broke off that holds the wire in place and the other I got off eBay and that piece is glued on. I need a cartridge I guess. The one I have on now that came with it, I don't know if it's any good. When I put the new headshell on the sound was very muffled. It's a nice Dual in very good shape. Someone can use it.

Pat

 

What model is it ? As mentioned before; if the automatic doesn't work simply ignore it ! You still can use it just like any other manual turn table that is sold today . The cart must be screwed on that black under shell and that has ll those tiny wires - the thing wolf66 is talking about. Just make that click inside the headsheel - the tip of your tonearm and voila - the DUAL should sound as nice as the cart allows. Me, too am always surprised how good my needledrops sound. just recorded a DoLP ny Kanye West and this is playing now from the iTunes over my DAC into theHiFi and the sound is as good if not better than the LP and any commercial availabel album. Stunning and all that without any tweaking or editing, getting rif of Vinyl noise etc. Just like recording a cassette in the 80ies, but it sounds better..
Of course if you want to invest in a better table, no problem...
Any cart around the 100 dollar mark will sound food, the Sumiko BPS EVO III I use costs 400 bucks and that beats most CD players under 1 grand...
That 701 was the best tablle on the market when it was introduced in 1973 along with the Technics SL 1200 and the LINN...The only HiFi magazine back then reviewed it saying. For LP quality this table is as good as is technically possible.
in other words, for the regular LP this is way more than sufficient to get each and every aspect of the performance (with the SHURE V-15 Type III it was sold with...)

Sure analog playback has com a long way since then, but for those classic Rock album this still is a killer tabel, for modern stuff it is no slouch either...

 

Mine is a 1219. I never could get it to work correct in manual mode. I know you slide the lever over to 'start' but it clicks over to auto mode. I have a Rega P3-2000 now and since I am unemployed I don't have the money to fix the Dual. Before I messed it up, the 1219 was great.

Pat

 

I finally remembered what Technics tuner I had. The ST-S7. And the cartridge for the 701 was the Shure V-15. I must have been thinking about VonSchweikert's older speakers when I typed VR.

 

Well said Hawthorne. I love my Dual 1228, but the full automatic feature on my Realistic LAB-400 is superior to the Dual imo. Its less finicky and seems better constructed. I also love the sound of the Realistic more. But what i love about Dual turntables are with certain music they can sound amazing. Thats the reason i own one. Im not putting Duals down either. But i can see where Hawthorne is coming from.

 

Resurrecting this old thread...

I thought some of you might enjoy seeing my dual Duals, both of which were expertly restored by AudioKarma member "No Transistors," who lives in Brooklyn.

European-spec'd c.1965-71 Model 1019 with genuine Dual base (NOT the more common United Audio base distributed in the US, or the Noresco base distributed in Canada). Besides the base, it also has crimped on interconnects (not RCA jacks), a voltage selector switch, and the record size selector indicated in centimeters. This was in pretty sad condition when I dragged it home for $25, but Seth (No Transistors) was able to bring it back to life.





c.1970-71 Model 1219 with genuine Dual base, with flip-down accessories compartment:

 

While I have heard many good words about Seth (No Transistors), shipping my DUAL to NYC does make me nervous ...

 

Here come the eye candies ...

http://www.dual-reference.com/tableinx.htm

 

Interesting I never had tracking issues with 1229s and I'm hyper sensitive to this. I actually eventually (after a LOT of trial and returns) wound up replacing mine with a Rega P5 which was the least expensive table I eventually arrived at that outperformed it. I have about 8 cartridges including a new Stanton 681eee-Stereohedron and V15 type 4MR that I bought years ago and thankfully hung on to over the years. The entry level Pro-Jects and Regas all had worse inner groove tracking than the Dual no matter what cart I used or what method of alignment I used. Finally when I got to the P5, the arms reached the clean level of tracking that I was getting out of the 1229. It's interesting that I saw a few people had tracking issues on theirs, perhaps poor arm cartridge matches, arm bearing issues, I couldn't even begin to speculate on that. I would vote for the idler units. 1219,1228,1218,1229 and 1019. But honestly I've reached the age where I'm getting tired of restoring things as finicky as vintage turntables as much as I like some of them. I'd really love to have a Lenco but I know I'm asking for trouble ! That's the whole reason I wanted to move to a modern table about 6 years ago. I didn't know I was going to have to exceed 1000 dollars to reach the performance of a vintage Dual, Thorens, AR, or Lenco. That did shock me.

 

I like the DUAL Golden Stone TT ...

 

I finally got hold of a non-trashed (although needing restoration, of course) Dual 1219 a few months ago that I should see if Seth can fix up for me over the summer. But yeah, no matter how carefully I pack the thing, if it ain't in its original packaging (or even if it were), it's a nervewracking proposition to send it out into the dangerous world. Not doing me much good stashed in a cabinet, though.