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View Full Version : My new old turntable, part 2 :lol:



DSJR
28-06-2010, 12:11
I was given this a year ago. A quick clean of the switches and the four speed pots (two on the mother board and two on the plinth, coupled with some fine oil on the main bearing and we're ready to roll..

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q8/DSJR_photos/DSCF1409.jpg

The Grace 707 was donated to me decades ago when a good mate upgraded to an Ittok on his LP12. The low capacitance cable needed new phono plugs and I carefully fitted some basic Neutriks, taking great care with the inner conductors, which are hair fine.. The cartridge is another Supex 900E Super I found, cleaned and has a fine beautiful tip on it.

Interesting sound this one. The mid is cleaner than the Dual, which I expected it to be, but the plinth is a bit "lively" and any light tapping comes through. This is where mats come in...

I still have some fine tuning to do, but I quickly found the "tapping test" sounded very different depending upon the mat used. I've only tried three so far, but the Herbies/Sound hiFi one was the worst for this one issue (but good in a musical sense), the techie original mat (which is quite heavy) was better and on this sample of SL-150, the Spacemat was the best of all and kept 99% of what the Herbies mat was doing, which it didn't do so well with the Dual 701.

By the way, the grace arm is bolted to the rear of the SME cutout, using both the solid and rubber "washers/mounting discs". The arm plate rests on a thin rubber gasket and is held in place with knurled headed finger screws with thin nylon washers under the heads.

I'll report later if anyone's interested.... :lolsign:

bigmoog
28-06-2010, 14:00
I was given this a year ago. A quick clean of the switches and the four speed pots (two on the mother board and two on the plinth, coupled with some fine oil on the main bearing and we're ready to roll..

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q8/DSJR_photos/DSCF1409.jpg

The Grace 707 was donated to me decades ago when a good mate upgraded to an Ittok on his LP12. The low capacitance cable needed new phono plugs and I carefully fitted some basic Neutriks, taking great care with the inner conductors, which are hair fine.. The cartridge is another Supex 900E Super I found, cleaned and has a fine beautiful tip on it.

Interesting sound this one. The mid is cleaner than the Dual, which I expected it to be, but the plinth is a bit "lively" and any light tapping comes through. This is where mats come in...

I still have some fine tuning to do, but I quickly found the "tapping test" sounded very different depending upon the mat used. I've only tried three so far, but the Herbies/Sound hiFi one was the worst for this one issue (but good in a musical sense), the techie original mat (which is quite heavy) was better and on this sample of SL-150, the Spacemat was the best of all and kept 99% of what the Herbies mat was doing, which it didn't do so well with the Dual 701.

By the way, the grace arm is bolted to the rear of the SME cutout, using both the solid and rubber "washers/mounting discs". The arm plate rests on a thin rubber gasket and is held in place with knurled headed finger screws with thin nylon washers under the heads.

I'll report later if anyone's interested.... :lolsign:


please report further, It all looks and sounds very interesting.....good for you....buy a new decca as well:cool:

Marco
28-06-2010, 16:12
Looks great, Dave! I'm a big fan of the Grace/Supex combo, too, so would be interested in your further thoughts :)

Marco.

DSJR
28-06-2010, 16:41
The Grace/Supex combo always worked well and on a wide variety of turntables. Indeed, the LP12 was hardly stressed by these two and some really wonderful sounds were made by this classic combination. It was the Asak and mainly the Ittok which screwed the bass up IMO and my God I tried to get the setup as good as possible..

This little deck is too shallow for the R200, especially mine with its Cardas plug on the end inserted as far as it will go :eyebrows: so the Grace seemed a good choice, as this one has good bearings still (many were knackered by ham-fisted Linn dealers....). I haven't had the chance to collect the TD160 Super/SME to see what state this arm's in, but the Grace is about as low in mass as I wish to go for an MC cartridge..

The motor unit of this non-quartz-locked deck still has enough torque to smartly start the platter in half a turn, the final 40% or so to full speed happening in the second quarter of the first revolution. There's only slowing if you put some finger drag on the platter (none on 2grammes tracking weight or less) and no overshoot at all, unlike the early OEM Matsushita units which hunted all over the place (the JBE and early Monitor Audio decks [and possibly the Rotels too from this era] suffered badly with this). The bearing is "more than adequate" for the deck concerned, has no obvious slop and runs for ages once power is removed.

I always had a fondness for the SL-150 and am pleased that with a mat change it responded so well. It doesn't have the "meat" or "power" of its peers, but neither is it thin toned and scrappy.

To be continued.. :)

chris@panteg
29-06-2010, 10:08
Looks good Dave ' very interested to read how you get on with it, especially against the Dual.

DSJR
29-06-2010, 13:18
The Dual is good and I was using it way out of its comfort zone cartridge wise. The headshell arrangement adds some microphony with some cartridges, although the Koetsu Black (when working), the MC30 Super and (mostly) the Supex and OC9 didn't upset the arm too much. The arm internal wiring is as original and having heard the subtle improvement in the pro Patch exit leads, I'm happy to believe an internal wire upgrade would help further (the Grace 707 had extremely low capacitance wires from new originally for CD-4 use). The 701's suspension also helps a lot with isolation, pounding the top of the cabinet brings nothing into the speakers.

I know I can go further with this, but the TD125 is waiting in the wings and I really need to get this one out of my system before the possibility of a Spacedeck happens..

darkstar078
30-06-2010, 11:03
Dave, thanx for sharing your knowledge as always.
Yes, a clear read in showing how one can stretch up tickling our equipment to a better performance.
This is the stuff I like to read at AOS.
I always liked the Duals, still do - simple plug and play tt's.
Just wondering how good would the Dual sound when changing the tonearm for a better one?

A fan.

DSJR
30-06-2010, 16:26
The Dual tonearm on the 1218/19/29 and 601/701 wasn't any worse than the Grace 707 in resonance terms and for myself, I'd consider a careful re-wire rather than replacement. I even used an early Decca "Blue" in my 1229 and it sounded great despite the lack of damping (how I got hooked on the Decca sound). I bought the remains of a Dual 701 which had the "Terminator" style wires run down the arm-tube. Obviously, the head-slide wires wouldn't be used, but the sound may have been clearer had it ever been used. The stuck-on mat fully deadens the platters and there's enough clearance to allow a herbies, Linn or NAS mat to be used on top.

PLEASE don't cannibalise a vintage Dual *just* because it's an idler or direct drive, as it's the whole package which appeals IMO. An SL150 like mine won't cost you much more than £50 and arms like SME's, Lustre, Grace, Hadcocks and RB250 should be fine as long as isolation can be successfully sorted out.