A couple of years ago I bought a Dual 701 turntable, because I never had a truntable with a spring suspension and because, well, it was fairly cheap.The lid was in a horrid condition, I knew that would never stick around.
The rest seemed to be fair, but the auto stop and start just never worked properly, always did strange stuff with the arm. I tried my best to fix this - steuerpimpels, new oil, all sort of things. After spending and inordinate amount of time on this, I decided to simply remove it. One of the better decisions in my life.
The plinth was a budget affair, no doubt. Very thin, soft wood that was painted off-white. To make matters worse, inside the wooden outside is a plastic piece that the turntable and springs rest on. Though the plastic is solid, this was no good and I felt that I could make it a lot more solid.
I played around with the spring suspension idea, but eventually decided to discard that. I had some wild olive (olienhout) planks lying around and I used this to build a heavy hardwoord plinth. The turntable simply rests on it and at the bottom is MDF. This was not simple as the wood is extremely hard and the planks were not straight. Nevertheless, I managed to get out of it what I needed. The result is a much smaller box, and perhaps I'll make a plan for a lid.
The arm seems really good - unfortunately the tube has had a knock or two. Sonically there is no differerence, but aesthetically I would like to replace it (anybody got a spare lying about?). The motor is well-regarded, and with good reason - it is very stable and extremely (dead) quiet. Perhaps a future project would entail an even more solid plinth where just the arm, motor and platter remain. We'll see. In the meantime, I am going to listen to this for a bit while my Linn gets a (much deserved) rest for a bit.
The side of the wood looks thin, but in reality the planks are about 15-20mm thick under the surface.
The rest seemed to be fair, but the auto stop and start just never worked properly, always did strange stuff with the arm. I tried my best to fix this - steuerpimpels, new oil, all sort of things. After spending and inordinate amount of time on this, I decided to simply remove it. One of the better decisions in my life.
The plinth was a budget affair, no doubt. Very thin, soft wood that was painted off-white. To make matters worse, inside the wooden outside is a plastic piece that the turntable and springs rest on. Though the plastic is solid, this was no good and I felt that I could make it a lot more solid.
I played around with the spring suspension idea, but eventually decided to discard that. I had some wild olive (olienhout) planks lying around and I used this to build a heavy hardwoord plinth. The turntable simply rests on it and at the bottom is MDF. This was not simple as the wood is extremely hard and the planks were not straight. Nevertheless, I managed to get out of it what I needed. The result is a much smaller box, and perhaps I'll make a plan for a lid.
The arm seems really good - unfortunately the tube has had a knock or two. Sonically there is no differerence, but aesthetically I would like to replace it (anybody got a spare lying about?). The motor is well-regarded, and with good reason - it is very stable and extremely (dead) quiet. Perhaps a future project would entail an even more solid plinth where just the arm, motor and platter remain. We'll see. In the meantime, I am going to listen to this for a bit while my Linn gets a (much deserved) rest for a bit.
The side of the wood looks thin, but in reality the planks are about 15-20mm thick under the surface.
