dual cs 503-2 left stereo sound stronger

[admin_exported]

Hi all

I got given a deck, a dual cs 503-2, by a friend and went out and bought some second hand (VG condition) vinyl from Flashback. Nick Cave's No more shall we part.

All was good and I had a listen last night, but this morning while listening to a new side, the sound went quite high pitched and much louder on the left. Like it had run into a scratch on the vinyl, there are a few.

Now I only get sound from the left hand speaker, there is sound on the right, but barely amplified. Checking using my DAC the amp is fine and there is sound from both speakers.

So how do I fix my deck so that it gives me sound from both channels. It is an old deck and has been unused for years I think, but lightly used before that, maybe 100-200 hours tops. There are 0-2.0 dials at the end of the arm, what should those be set on?

thanks Gavin

 

[fatboyslimfast]

I would suggest that this is probably the cartridge tags corroding.

However, to test it is the TT and not the amp, change the phono leads over (i.e. swap left and right channels). If the sound now comes out of the right channel, follow the steps below.

Get a pair of fine-nosed pliers, and gently remove and reconnect the little wires that come from the arm onto the cartridge pins.

Do this twice for each wire - this should clean the connections well enough.

Also, the Dual has a removeable headshell - untwist the collar between the armtube and cartridge headshell, remove the headshell, then replace it and tighten the collar (being careful not to cross-thread the headshell!).

Let us know how you get on...

The dials at the end should both be somewhere between 1.5 and 2.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks, that was a really helpful reply.

will have a go at fixing it later and tell you how I get one.

Vinyl does sound different, having grown up on tapes and then CDs, then mp3s

be good to get more than 1/2 an album listened to

 

[gregory]

The 2 dials on this deck are for elliptical and spherical cartridges, make sure you have it set to the right type, so depending on what type of cartridge you have i would put it on elliptical as that is the more common type, but not knowing what cartridge you have it wont hurt to try and may solve your problem without unplugging the cartridge tags although as FBS suggests it is a good little tweek but not for the faint hearted so needle nose pliers are what you need, if this does not work then set the arm so it floats about 1mm above the platter or record (bit safer) then dial the weight to zero and add 1.75 grams as i think it may be a generic ortofon on the Dual add the same amount of anti skate or a lttle less and then see how it sounds. vinyl is great.