Most other turntables only offered socket screws for the purpose. The vertical tracking of the CS 721 tonearm could be calibrated via a lever. The tonearm had a 2-fold dampened, adjustable counterweight and could additionally be altered in lateral length to perfectly accommodate most cartridge weights. Even the dust cover lift could be adjusted on the CS 721 just in case the spring should soften with age. I always loved this feature on the Dual decks, as I had to spend lots of time transporting them in the car. Like all Duals of this period, it offered three transport screws to clamp down the chassis during transport. Next to its precise and quiet motor, rigid tonearm, and legendary Shure cartridge, the CS 721 offered a host of adjustable settings that were class-leading at its time. The result was a tonally rich, precise, and undisturbed sound, just as one would expect from one of Dual’s top players.
I used tri-ball absorbers to further isolate the plinth from potential vibrations caused by steps, slamming doors, or the other Hi-Fi units in the rack. The result was a solid wood plinth that held the original structure suspended whilst silencing any vibrations to the plastic through the use of rubber foam.
#Dual turntable full
You will find a full article on the project in the 'Explorations' section of this blog. I also decided that I was going to improve the plinth of the turntable to isolate any physical vibrations from the floating chassis, as the thin plastic vat did not seem sufficient for the job. However, listening to the two styli in direct comparison, it was hard not to favour the worn-out Super-Track-Plus for its amount of delicacy. Shibata needles were originally developed for use with quadrophonic recordings, reached deeply into the record groove, and, similar to Jico’s SAS styli, were capable of great nuance. My first impulse was to take the plunge on a Jico SAS stylus with boron cantilever however, an indefinite delivery impasse from Jico forced me to settle for a Tonar Shibata stylus instead. Sadly, the original Shure stylus was too worn out on our model, so that I had to look for a suitable replacement.
The cartridge exhibited the usual Shure bass qualities while performing smoothly across an extensive frequency range from 10 Hz to 25,000 Hz. The Shure V15-III was an excellent tracker with a low stylus force of merely 0.75g to 1.25g. One obvious highlight of the CS 721 was its tonally rich made-for-Dual Shure V15-III cartridge with its Super-Track-Plus stylus. However, the pressure to surpass its competition by means of sophistication assured the CS 721 some highly sophisticated features that are rarely found on turntables of any age. In fact, the new lack of genuine wood on the products of the German manufacturer from the Black Forest was already a tribute to the increasingly price-driven market. Dual had to rely on its good name in audiophile circles in order to be able to sell its products next to the sleek and slim looking Asian designs from Technics, Pioneer, Sony, etc. Its plinth was a base of cheap plastic that was skirted with a frame of laminated wood.
In its most affordable form, the CS 721 was not the most beautiful deck on the market. And I must confess that I do love the straightforward sound of our smaller CS 505-3 as well. However, we do not listen to specifications but to music, of course. The CS 721 was a direct drive design (DD) and, in all fairness to the other two camps, had the most audiophile specifications in terms of rumble, wow, and flutter of them all. Proponents of idler wheel turntables, the ‘Treibrad Classics’, would cite Dual models CS 1219 and CS 1229 as their favourites, whereas belt-drive fans would give preference to the CS 5000 or CS 7000 Golden. When there is disagreement between the experts, this is usually about the merits of the drive system. The CS 721 was Dual’s flagship turntable towards the end of the 1970s and is, by many, considered to rank among the best Dual turntables ever made.
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