The Dual 701 & Yamaha YP-701 Turntables: Exit to Vintage Street
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Lynn,
I will get you an answer. It does depend on the condition and if there’s a cartridge on the tonearm.
Best,
Ian White
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Lynn,
It really depends on the condition and where you live. If you are based in the U.S., we’ve seen 701s go from between $400 – $550 without a cartridge.
If you are based in Canada, the prices would be in the range of $300 to $650 CDN depending on the condition.
There are a number of vintage audio dealers that might pay you a better price versus someone on eBay who will try to nickel and dime you on the purchase.
Turntables are hard to ship properly if you don’t know how to do it and there is a risk of things getting broken which can became a nightmare for the seller.
The best option would be to sell to someone local who can pick it up.
Ian White
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Cheers Chris. Appreciate the feedback. If it wasn’t clear in the article, I sure do love both my 701s! Do you have experience with one or the other?
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I am the original owner of a Dual 701. It still looks brand new which is to be expected as I am extremely fussy about my equipment. I use various ADC cartridges, an older ZLM for records that are not in pristine condition and an XLM mark 2 for my good records. I also have some old D to D LPs that have been minimally played. They sound wonderful. I recently had this unit reconditioned professionally by a gentleman in St. Thomas, ON and it again works perfectly. So, after 50 years, I have something that still performs wonderfully. I did not know until after the reconditioning that the unit is internally ground so you do not have to do this yourself. I am contemplating upgrading the wires from the TT ( I’ll have to take it apart ) and expect that this would make a further improvement in sound.
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Are you talking changing the power cable, or the RCAs to the amplifier? Some 701s (mine included) have RCA plugs on the underside and replaceable cables, so it’s easy to hook new ones up.
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A few comments:
1) Replacing the power cord will NOT result in any audible difference. This coming from a “High-End” Audio tweako nutcase!
2) Darn tootin’ you should replace your crummy old RCA interconnect cables with something alot better. The problem is though, that you have to shop carefully to get an appropriate type specifically for phono use. And many of those wires will cost you multiples of what you paid for your 50yr. well-used turntables!
I recommend cables made with Teflon insulation inside & out, which usually means that the wire is either pure silver (!) or silver-plated(good enough!).
The main thing is that the cable needs to be “low capacitance” if you’re using a MM (“Magnetic”) type phono cartridge. Most fancy “High End” cables, whilst sounding great, are about 60pf/ft. Anything much over 200-250pf (total) will cause audible treble loss. 1 metre cuts it fine, & usually that’s too short for most of us; I like to keep it no longer than 5ft. myself. 60×5=300pf…too much! I keep expenses way down by using a MIL-SPEC wire called RG316B/U, which is only 30pf/ft. You can find short lengths cheap on eBay, should cost less than $50 for 10-50ft.!
3) All those crazy Germans have a silver fetish, which is a very BAD material once it gets old enough to start tarnishing (about a month!). After 50yrs.x 12 months, that 600x awful!!! I therefore HIGHLY recommend that you replace the RCA jacks in the turntable to nickel-plated ones (gold looks pretty but sounds & works IDENTICAL). You will also note that the cartridge pin sockets in the “headshell” are also made from silver, & are a mottled black & grey colour. YEEEEECH! These also need to be replaced with nickel or gold connectors. HUGE sonic improvements if you do these things!
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thank you for your article.
I´m owner of a YAMAHA YP700 for more than 40 years
CARTRIDGES: SHURE V15TYPE III tracking force 0.75 to 1,0 g (symphonic music and quadriphonic (SQ SYSTEM) Lps, . For all purpose music: SHURE M97xE tracking force 1.25 to 1.50 g (dumping brush up); GOLDRING 1,5 to 1.75 gr.
Quite; NO ISSUES, but sometimes is difficult to find the right anti-skating level (appears to depend on the LP itself ?!).
And more recently, needs to change the belt…
GDS-
Glad you enjoyed it. YP700 was the Japanese domestic equivalent of the 701 international model, right? It’s a great player.
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Setting up anti-skating properly is an arcane black art; you need good eyes,good test records, & a decent ear. It’s usually best left to a professional TT setup technician (which I happen to be🧘). I suspect that 0.75-1g VTF with your Shure V15 Type III is too low for clean tracking; Shure (& most other cartridge companies…🙄) liked to lie about that sort of thing for cynical marketing purposes. I like 1.4g for the M97xE, & no less than 1.3g for my V15 Type IV. I’d bring up your VTF to at least that for your Type III!
Another possibility is stylus wear; stylii with over 500hrs. of use show a very noticeable decline in their tracing ability & should be replaced at the first sign of fuzziness in music peaks!
I’d also have a professional inspect the tonearm bearings & make sure that friction is 20 milligrammes or less in both horizontal & vertical planes.
REMEMBER: Audible tracking distortion = PERMANENT LP DAMAGE!
The sooner you get to the bottom of your tracking troubles, the less FURTHER & permanent damage you’ll do to your (precious?) LP’s!
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Great piece! Having been a fan of Dual 1219 and 1229 for a rim drive, you couldnt beat em. I still have my 1229 and an Empire 698 both in great operating condition and I added the B&o 8002 to round out the collection. I never stopped playing vinyl. Vinyl is king
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You’re not missing much, Ian!
Not that the 1229 (or 1219, or 1019…) are stinkers compared to the 701. Just, IMHO I can’t see them being any better sounding (as awesome as they sound), & almost certainly are noisier (rumble-wise, & maybe mechanical hum too).
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Great article and turntable face off. I’ve had my Yamaha YP-701 since 1975. Will be listing it shortly.
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Really enjoyed reading of your discovery and appreciation. I purchased my Dual 701 in 1975 when it was $600 retail and it took that whole year to save enough for the purchase. The cartridge of choice was the Shure V15, and an Audio Technica for four channel discrete Quadraphonic recordings.
This turntable shared home with JVC separate Tuner and Preamp, Macintosh MC2105 and SAE Mark XXXIB power amps. My speakers were the Infinity WTLC (wave transmission line columns) and Infinity Monitor Jr.
A later change to bi-amplification came by adding a Pioneer active crossover and a speaker rewire on the WTLCs. The Monitor Jr.speakers moved to system #2, which was in the bedroom.
The new found clarity of bi-amping was stupendious! The Mac’s 141 w/ch. and the SAE’s 72 w/ch. (both tested at point of clipping) were exactly the prescription for the power hungery Infinitys. Never ever exceded the speakers capability in my home enviornment. Also never felt a need for a subwoofer as the response was so low that it compared very well to my live performance references.
I recommend everyone experience an active crossover feeding multible amplifiers, if only two amps like my system.
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Funny, I just picked up an MC2105 and C28. In the shop now being checked over. Looking forward to this being the heart of my system, with Dual and Empire as sources and ADS L1230 (when they’re back from the shop) as endpoint. Should make a beautiful noise!
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Dana,
Eric has created a monster. I’m now looking for a McIntosh preamp for my Acoustic Energy AE1 powered loudspeakers.
Ian White
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Heck , my Thorens TD 166 to me is all I’ll ever need. Same one my room mate bought in the late eighties and played only a hand full of times before CDs came along and parked it in a closet.
Finally talked him out of it about ten years ago and installed an Ortifon blue MM . Bliss
Loved the article-
Doug,
I use a restored Thorens TD-160 Super and TD-145 MKII in my main system. Love them both.
Ian White
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Can imagine I’d be pretty happy with a TD 166 too. And love the story of how you got it; one of the great things about collecting vintage audio equipment is the stories!
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I’m a long-time Dual fan, beginning with a 1009 for my parents’ system in 1965, a 1212 for mine in 1970, a 1219 in 1973 while I was in the US Army, a 622 in 1983 and finally, a CS 5000 bought used in 1994. Still have the 5000 equipped with a Sumiko Oyster “Moonstone”. Great sound although the belt-drive system seems to be losing steam after all these years and a couple service events
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Which was your favourite? I’ve always been curious about the Idlers but haven’t yet had the pleasure of hearing one.
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Some great and informative comments here! I just wanted to chime in on my 701. I got it 25 years ago from an aircraft mechanic who gave it to me for an incredible $200.00 CAD! My vinyl collection never sounded so good! It really is the quietest turntable ever!
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RR,
I love my YP-701 the I purchased from Eric Pye. I put a better Ortofon headshell on it with a Grado Opus3. Sounds amazing.
IW
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Glad you enjoyed the article. I love the 701 and keep returning to it; it’s my keeper if I ever have to go down to one deck.
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Beautiful ‘tables and for me, Semi-Auto and full Auto are the ONLY way to go. The canard that “noise” is introduced is farcical as in my decades of enjoying music with Automatic turntables, including those all in one systems of the ’70s, I have NEVER heard any noise coming from the turntable.
Unless you include that ridiculous drum solo from Iron Butterfly.
ORT
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No,there are other problems with automatic turntables like the Dual (and the Bang & Olufsen radial trackers i.e. 1602,1700). Two main things:
1) The tonearm is dragging along a metal rod that slides through guides that trip the lift & return mechanism(s). They add substantial drag, especially if your cartridge has a low VTF: 2.5g or less. Tracking ability is noticeably degraded & there’s audible distortion, which often isn’t noticed with (ahem!) mediocre low-resolution systems such as I suspect most of you own. Certainly the improvement will be heard when the mechanism is disabled properly, as if you upgraded to a substantially better cartridge!
2) All those pieces that are required to do the litany of little operations that constitute full and/or auto-return operation usually number around TWO DOZEN metal & plastic bits. They’re not secured very strongly,in order to keep frictional forces to a minimum.
Again, removing all this rattling KRAP substantially “cleans up” the sound of the turntable. Here the sonic improvement is even more dramatic in a “before” & “after” comparison.
Bear in mind that a turntable acts as a transducer; not just your cartridge! And with outputs of less than 1 millivolt coming out of MM cartridges & less than 100 MICROvolts from MC cartridges during typical music passages, it’s no wonder that the smallest things get so greatly magnified when you listen.-
Joe,
I had one of the automatic Duals and it was a nightmare. I now have 3 restored Thorens tables (Vinyl Nirvana) that have been problem free for years. TD-145 MKII, TD-160 Super, and a TD-125 MKII. The Yamaha gets a lot of use in my bedroom system. I replaced the head shell with a new one from Ortofon and have a Grado Opus3 on the arm now. Table is on an isolation platform and I have zero issues with it.
Best,
Ian White
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Talk about weird coincidences! I was checking out the Yamaha YP-701 for a friend who brought it to my attention. I didn’t know anything about it prior. The same friend recently sold me his “backup” Dual 701; I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better turntable…& I’ve heard my more-than fair share of megabuck TT’s like Linn LP12, Oracle Delphi, Jean Nantais hyper-modified Lenco, Brinkmann Bardo (with TUBE power supply!🙄), etc. etc. blah blah blah!
And here I stumble across a blog, thank Big Brother Google & his sneaky-clever algorithms, that puts 2 & 2 together!!!🤪🤯🤣🤣🤣
Hmmm…I may just buy that Yamaha YP-701 if my buddy takes a pass on it. Start a 701 collection. Now, what other brands of turntable made one that also has the number “701” in it?🤔🤔🤔😏
Chris
March 22, 2021 at 11:34 am
Great piece!