The first thing I did, of course, was to rip everything apart! The turntable, a Dual model 1210 came out quite easily - actually, it was kind of halfway out already, a consequence of the bumps of shipping, no doubt. There were three wires to disconnect to completely remove the turntable - two RCA type audio output cables and a multi-wire harness with power, ground, etc. Once the TT was out, I gave both it and the case a good cleaning. Damp soft cloth for the upper surfaces of the turntable, and a vacuum cleaner with the bristle and nozzle attachments for the case. 40+ years of dust and cobwebs - well, actually, it was surprisingly clean - just a bit of dust. After everything was spotless, I reconnected the wires and put it all back together. Powered it up for the first time - the tuner dial face has a nice, soft, green glow when power is turned on. Unclipped the tonearm lock and lifted the tonearm (via the lever), and turned it on. The mechanisms worked perfectly, the tonearm lifted, moved to position for a 33, and gently set down as far as it could. I turned it off, and the arm lifted and returned to its holder. So, next, I took out 'This is Sinatra', and placed it onto the spindle. Turned it on - the record dropped perfectly, and "Got the World on a String" began to play!
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| Dusty guts. |
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| Turntable inner (under) workings. |
The sound was a bit tin-y, so I fiddled with the tone controls - bass way down, treble up to about 3/4 or so, and that seemed to get close. Still, I think I will be upgrading the original Electrohome cartridge ASAP to something better. About a minute into play, I started hearing a soft squealing that got progressively louder and more obnoxious. So I went online and looked up a few phono forums, and found an awesome one (I have to add a links section) called
vinylengine. They have a whole subforum dedicated to Dual turntables, and with a bit of searching, I was able to find some pretty good instructions as to what I needed to do. So, once again, I removed the TT, but this time did some minor surgery. The whining was coming from somewhere in the motor assembly, because when I rotated the spindle, I would still get a bit of noise, so one or more of the bearings needed to be lubed. I pulled the motor (easy - 2 bolts), and put some oil on the upper bearing - still noise. Put the motor back on, and pulled the lower spindle bushing, added a drop of oil, and voila! - no niose! Reassembled teh TT back into the carcass, cleaned the stylus, and played some vinyl - sounds pretty good! Overall, I'd say the sound is pretty good, other than the shortcomings I listed earlier, but it does sound a bit muffled.
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| E'home 703 speaker. |
So, next it was time to investigate the speaker system, and I do use the word "system" loosely. It turns out that the E'home Circa 703A houses a single 8" driver, with a rather small magnet. There is absolutely no info about what the speaker is driven at in terms of amplifier output in the rather meager manual that came with the stereo, but the speaker does have 8ohms printed on the magnet, so at least I know the impedance. I think I'll look around for a pair of mid century globe speakers to add to this system - either the old JVC Nivico globes, or a pair of mid century Grundig Audiorama globe speakers. Either would look fantastic sidled up against the Circa 703. And either of these choices would be a vast improvement over the audio output of the single speaker, and look age-appropriate.
I still need to re-oil the carcass and base, but overall, it's in very good shape with very little to do. There is a circular slightly paler patch on the top in the enamel, but I don't think there is anything that can be done about that, and it's not that noticeable. For the places where the paint has chipped away, I think that the black appliance epoxy from home depot will work well for giving these a decent camouflage job. Next up: Sourcing a new cartridge.
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