Dual 504 - advice for cart adjustment?

[jhg540]

Hi all,

I have a new (to me) Dual 504, and an old Stanton 680 cartridge I'd like to try with it. New cartridge holder ordered for the Dual, check.

Now: any advice for setting up and aligning the cartridge on the Duals that use these cart holders? As opposed to the removable headshells I've used in the past, this setup seems like it would be a PITA to get aligned right. Thinking it through, seems like I'd have to ball-park the cart position with cart holder out, then attach it to check alignment, de-attach to ball-park it again, repeat and repeat until it's right.

Is that correct? Any tips or tricks from others with Duals who have done this?

[vlamofoon]

The 504, like other Dual's came all with nearly the same transparant plastic template wich you could slide over the detached cartridge holder to install a cartridge. (Example picture: User Manual Dual 1225, page 5, figure 12.) In lack of it you may do it your way, though it's somewhat inaccurate.
Better to use, by example: the Ortofon universal template. But you will have to keep on repeating: take of- and put in place, the cartridge holder everytime you change the overhang.
To reduce wear of the cartridgeholder during this procedure it is advisible to put a small amount of teflonlubricant:
* on the little shaft (underneath the tonearmhead) at the spot were the tonearmhandle rotates,
* the place on the cartridgeholder where the tonearmhandle locks/unlocks the cartridgeholder.

[jhg540]

Hi. Thanks for letting me know. Tried to post before but I don't think it went through before. Sadly my turntable came in great shape but it didn't come with the plastic guide. So I guess it's the trial and error method for me. I'll dig out my alignment protractor for sure.

[lini]

Well, did your 504 already come with a TK24 carrier with mounted cartridge? Provided that's correctly mounted (if it was one of Dual's special click-in mount cartridge variants, that would automatically be the case...), you could simply measure the horizontal distance between needle tip and carrier front - and then just mount the Stanton in the new TK24 with the same tip to front distance (and same orientation of the cart body, of course).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

[jhg540]

Manfred,

Good idea! I'll do that. It came with the TK24 carrier, but I don't think with the original cartridge. Happily, it came with a Shure v15 type iv. I need to check alignment on that one too. If it is in alignment, I guess I could do what you suggest, yeah. I'll have to make sure it gets squared up right but that method will at least get me close the first time.