On the tactile side, I derived great pleasure from the ritual of interacting with the record and player. To be honest, I didn’t expect to be so smitten by the entirety of the vinyl experience. To get off on the right foot, I also quickly picked up several essential records: Kind of Blue, Aja, New Gold Dream, Avalon, Blue Train, Flight to Jordan, Blade Runner OST, Idle Moments, Wish You Were Here all great albums with superb sonics. A search on Kijiji found one in good, recently serviced condition with a reputable Empire 2000E/iii cartridge. Reports called it one of the more underrated Duals, and I’m a fan of underdogs. After much research, I settled on a 604 semi-automatic, direct drive for its simple mechanism, low noise, reliability and price. I was quite attracted to the design and reported sound quality of the Dual 701, but it was still a bit expensive for my liking. Dual’s best-known units were undoubtedly the 1009, 12 (all idler drives competing with the pricier Garrard, Lenco and Thorens tables of the day) and the 701 direct drive. They started selling internationally in the late ‘60s with their 1009 idler wheel table and added belt and direct-drive players to the product line in the ‘70s. They obviously manufactured a lot of turntables in the ‘70s, and their prevalence was proof of quality and durability.ĭual produced their first turntable in Germany in the late 1930s. One brand that consistently popped up in searches as a potential price-to-performance winner was Dual with plenty of article mentions, and every third or fourth vintage table on eBay and Kijiji being one of their tables. Perhaps someday in the future, but not right now. On the high-end side I was drawn to models like the Thorens TD-160, Pioneer PL-518, Marantz 6300 and Linn LP12, but my wallet firmly rejected these options. Being “new” to vinyl, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, but very much wanted a reliable turntable that could deliver great sound. The decision to go analog again brought on some serious online research. At this point, I was committedly riding the retro audio train, so the turntable was definitely going to be a vintage model from the ‘70s or early ‘80s. I resisted the call to buy a turntable and get back into records, but finally succumbed in September 2018. Little did I know that vinyl would come storming back 25 years later. The Dual 701 and Yamaha YP-701 were not yet on my radar. I was moving abroad so this was somewhat of a forced choice, but like many, I also believed the future was digital. In the early ‘90s I took the digital plunge, and I sold my trusty Technics SL-220 turntable and four milk crates of records. Ecoustics’ Eric Pye (Audio Love NYC) shares his journey with two premium vintage turntables from the 70’s.
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