Dual 505
 

Yesterday, I got a Dual 505 on Ebay for £77. I know there are Denons,
Thorens etc. around but I have a budget...

Here's why I chose it:

The price was right! I've seen them on sale for £120+ and another Dual
505 on Ebay for 'spares or repairs' went for £60 just after I snagged mine.

A reputation for solid, long lasting performance. Made in Germany before
manufacturing went to China in 2000.

Unlike the 506, the headshell will take standard cartridges which brings
me to..

It has a M55E cartridge which the seller tells me was recently fitted.

Comes with Dual's ultra low mass tone arm.

With manual and in original packaging.

Support and spares such as belts seem to be readily available, although
the seller says he isn't aware of any issues.

I see a few people doubting if vinyl--digital is worth it. Rationally,
I'm not sure either but I think it will be fun trying.

Dual 505
 

"Sumatriptan" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I got a Dual 505 on Ebay for £77. I know there are Denons,
Thorens etc. around but I have a budget...

Here's why I chose it:

The price was right! I've seen them on sale for £120+ and another Dual 505
on Ebay for 'spares or repairs' went for £60 just after I snagged mine.

A reputation for solid, long lasting performance. Made in Germany before
manufacturing went to China in 2000.

Unlike the 506, the headshell will take standard cartridges which brings
me to..

It has a M55E cartridge which the seller tells me was recently fitted.

Comes with Dual's ultra low mass tone arm.

With manual and in original packaging.

Support and spares such as belts seem to be readily available, although
the seller says he isn't aware of any issues.

I see a few people doubting if vinyl--digital is worth it. Rationally,
I'm not sure either but I think it will be fun trying.


They are perfectly reasonable turntables although probably not my choice.
Whether it's worth it or not is totally a personal decision but if you're
listening to your LPs anyway then why not copy them while at it?
My suggestion would be to simply keep the turntable and use it to listen to
your albums (assuming you have a moving magnet phono stage on your
amplifier).
Personally I've not been happy with the mastering on the vast majority of
CDs I've bought compared to the vinyl equivalent, yes, the CD format SHOULD
be better but I've not found that. A lot have very compressed dynamic range
which may be good for listening to in a car but not when at home.
--
David

Dual 505
 

I hope for your sake that it doesn't turn out to have a hum, but after
my experiences with my Dual 601, I'm inclined to think it most
probably will ...

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:04:17 +0000, Sumatriptan
wrote:

Yesterday, I got a Dual 505 on Ebay for £77. I know there are Denons,
Thorens etc. around but I have a budget...
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Dual 505
 

Yes, recording to lossless digital was my original interest..see the
Vinyl to digital thread.

I do have an ancient amplifier with mm phono input (anyone remember the
Texan amp kit?) to do initial testing but my aim is to get a preamp to
convert to line level for PC input. I may get a battery preamp as
suggested by Jim in the other thread.

My feelings regarding CD mastering are similar to yours. They are often
'in yer face' and seem harsh compared to my memories of the same
material on vinyl. Will be interesting to know if it is just nostalgia
or if I can really hear much difference.

Tony

Dual 505
 

On 16/02/2015 14:24, Java Jive wrote:
I hope for your sake that it doesn't turn out to have a hum, but after
my experiences with my Dual 601, I'm inclined to think it most
probably will ...


Thanks for the info. Any reason for thinking that the problem may be
common to all Dual models?

Dual 505
 

In article , Sumatriptan
wrote:
Yesterday, I got a Dual 505 on Ebay for £77. I know there are Denons,
Thorens etc. around but I have a budget...


It has a M55E cartridge which the seller tells me was recently fitted.

If you don't already have a suitable test LP in good condition I'd
recommend getting a copy of one. I have a set of different examples, right
back to HFS69 (the age is hinted at by the number 8-]), The old ones aren't
available unused any more. However I think the

"Analogue Productions Ultimate Analogue Test LP"

is still available.

As with many test LPs the white/pink noise, isn't. :-) But the tones are
OK.

You can then use it to check that your cartridge, etc, are working OK.
Initially check 'by ear' that it tracks reasonably well. Adjust the playing
force ('weight') and bias to suit. Then check by making a digital recording
and seeing how much distortion, rumble, hum, etc there is.

Once happy with it, adjust the levels so your recordings don't clip. FWIW I
tend to set levels so a 0dB RIAA tone would come out somewhere around -15
to -18dB in the digital file. This gives headroom for loud sounds and means
you can simply leave the recording gain set from then on. No need to fiddle
with it from one LP to the next or worry about clipping. Makes life easier.


I see a few people doubting if vinyl--digital is worth it. Rationally,
I'm not sure either but I think it will be fun trying.

Experiment is often the best way to decide since it'll depend on you and
the LPs, etc. Have fun and enjoy the music rather than regard it as a task
to be ground though.

Jim

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Which model of 505 did you buy?
Inflation aside, £77.00 isn't far off what a CS 505-1 cost when it was new.

Back in the day, the mags would have us believe a
Dual CS 505-1 turntable + New Acoustic Dimension 3020 integrated amplifier + a pair of Acoustic Research AR19 loudspeakers
was the best buy budget system to own.

Ah, dreams of Rega Planar 3 and A&R Cambridge A60...

Dual 505
 

The way mine was wired (*), and assuming that yours is not likely to
be very different. Mine was a very old model, though, bought c1974,
and if yours is not of the same vintage hopefully things will have
improved. Nevertheless, I wouldn't bank on it, my impression being
that less, not more, care is taken over decks these days. I think the
manufacturers tend to think: "This is never going to have comparable
output to a good CD deck, so we'll make it cheap and cheerful!" That
means a ceramic cartridge and not much attention given to things like
hum suppression. I hope for your sake that I'm wrong, but time will
soon tell.

* The wiring mistakes were as follows ...

:-( The deck was made of metal, yet originally supplied with a
two-core, that is unearthed, mains cable. Very early on in its life,
I changed the mains lead for a three-core one with the earth attached
to the deck metal. Not only was this a lot safer in theory, in
practice it also meant that when dismounting a record I didn't get
electric shocks from static having built up from the normal action of
the stylus in the groove. When I first did this, I was using a
properly earthed amp, so didn't notice any increase in hum, IIRC quite
the reverse in fact, but by the time a couple of years ago when I was
doing the digitisation, I was using an amp with a two-core mains lead,
that is, although it had an earth point for a deck, it itself was not
earthed, and the deck now gave a big hum.

:-( When analysing this hum, the next thing I noticed was that the
arm and cartridge holder were grounded to the deck metal. Just
cutting, or in my case unsoldering, the cartridge holder earth
underneath the deck and instead taking it out the back to the earth
point on the amp made quite a bit of difference, but didn't get rid of
the hum entirely.

:-( Then I realised, and proved it with a resistance meter, that
the tone arm was not electrically insulated from the deck metal, which
meant that even after the above link had been fixed, the wiring to the
cartridge still picked up hum from being surrounded by the metal tube
of the tone arm. What follows is definitely not something to be
recommended, but it being a very, very old and already beat up deck
with zilch second-hand value, for example the lid hinges had broken
within a couple of years of purchase, I didn't mind hazarding breaking
it altogether, and so completely dismantled the tone arm, replacing
the wiring with the smallest stereo coaxial wiring I could find, so
that the outer sheath being grounded protected the signal wires
within, and this completely fixed the hum. However such cable is a
lot less flexible than the original very thin and delicate wiring that
is commonly used to wire between the terminals of the cartridge and
the outputs at the back, so this introduced tracking problems which
took a lot of trial and error to fix, which is why it's not something
to be generally recommended.

So if yours has a hum, my advice would be to repatriate it immediately
as not being "fit for purpose".

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:49:38 +0000, Sumatriptan
wrote:

Thanks for the info. Any reason for thinking that the problem may be
common to all Dual models?

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Dual 505
 

If by phone input you mean one with RIAA bias-correction, then why not
just take the line out of that amp to your soundcard instead. That's
what I did, the results were very acceptable, and I reckoned it was a
lot easier than faffing around with a preamp, and trying to avoid it
introducing hum that I'd already spent so many hours trying to remove.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:47:58 +0000, Sumatriptan
wrote:

I do have an ancient amplifier with mm phono input (anyone remember the
Texan amp kit?) to do initial testing but my aim is to get a preamp to
convert to line level for PC input. I may get a battery preamp as
suggested by Jim in the other thread.
--
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UK Residents: If you feel can possibly support it
please sign the following ePetition
before closing time of 30/03/2015 23:59:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/71556
================================================== =======
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header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
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Dual 505
 

On 16/02/2015 17:49, Java Jive wrote:
If by phone input you mean one with RIAA bias-correction, then why not
just take the line out of that amp to your soundcard instead. That's
what I did, the results were very acceptable, and I reckoned it was a
lot easier than faffing around with a preamp, and trying to avoid it
introducing hum that I'd already spent so many hours trying to remove.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:47:58 +0000, Sumatriptan
wrote:

I do have an ancient amplifier with mm phono input (anyone remember the
Texan amp kit?)


Is the Texan phono input stage good enough? I doubt it.

--
Eiron.