Dual 1229Q
A seven-pound platter, a gimbal that tracks at a quarter gram, and the last word in Dual's rim-drive multi-play line.
Overview
The first thing to know about the 1229Q is the seven-pound, dynamically balanced platter. Dual built it as a full-sized turntable with a twelve-inch platter, driven by the company's Continuous-Pole/synchronous motor. It is the same rim-drive design as before, with an idler wheel that disengages when not in play. Dual's own advertising said this was expensive to make because each part has to be machined and quality-controlled for perfect concentricity. Get it right and it performs precisely, reliably, and durably. The 1229Q was positioned as Dual's highest-priced multi-play turntable, a "no compromise" component at $259.95, sold without base and dust cover. The belt-drive 601 ran $270 and the direct-drive 701 hit $400, both including base and dust cover.
The tonearm is where the Q earns its keep. An 8-3/4" arm sits in a true gyroscopic gimbal that centers and balances within both axes of movement. All four pivots turn on identical low-friction bearings, which permits flawless tracking at as low as 0.25 gram. A table of this caliber spends most of its life in single-play, so the arm is designed to track at precisely the correct angle in that mode. Dual's exclusive Mode Selector lets the user instantly adjust tracking angle for correct tracking at mid-stack in multi-play. Cueing is damped in both directions, up as well as down, to prevent bounce.
The Q suffix is about capacitance and cartridge compatibility. Low-capacitance tonearm leads and an anti-skating system with separate calibrations for conical, elliptical, and CD-4 styli make the 1229Q compatible with any stereo and four-channel cartridge available at the time or likely to be available in the foreseeable future. The CD-4 calibration shows this was a table built for the quadraphonic era's most demanding cartridge requirements. A calibrated illuminated strobe with adjustable viewing angle rounds out the operating features.
On drive performance, Dual's own advertising was candid. Measured by the conservative European DIN standard, the rim-drive 1229Q and the belt-drive 601 were identical: weighted rumble of -63dB and wow and flutter under 0.06%. The direct-drive 701 bettered both at -70dB and under 0.03%. The same advertising conceded that a listener was not likely to detect any difference unless the rest of the system also met the highest possible standards and the listener was exceptionally critical. That is a rare bit of honesty from a manufacturer selling three drive types at three price points. The 1229Q's case rests on the arm, the platter mass, and the multi-play flexibility, not on a rumble figure that undercuts its stablemates.
Contemporary reception arrived mostly by proxy. The 1229Q was too new for test reports to have appeared when Dual's launch advertising ran, so the company leaned on reports for its immediate predecessor, the 1229, which Dual's own copy called the largest-selling quality turntable ever made. Stereo Review had called the 1229's rumble measurements among the best it had yet made on a turntable. High Fidelity described the 1229 as taking one step further the progressive improvements that had kept top Dual models among the most popular turntables in component systems for the better part of a decade. High Fidelity (January 1975, p.10) ran the 1229Q launch material itself, noting the model was too new for its own test reports and pointing readers to the 1229's record instead. Audio (January 1975, p.35) carried the same launch copy, and HiFI-Stereo (December 1974, p.49) placed the 1229Q at the top of a lineup that ran down through the 1228, 1226, and 1225.
The 1229Q's reputation is inherited rather than independently measured. It rests on the 1229's documented performance and on the Q's added CD-4-ready arm and calibration refinements. Collectors should treat it as the fully-refined endpoint of Dual's rim-drive multi-play design rather than as a distinct measured performer. The idler-wheel system is the maintenance item to know about. The wheel disengages when not in play, and the whole design depends on machined concentricity, so a tired idler or dried lubrication is the usual source of speed and noise complaints on examples found today. The seven-pound platter and gimbaled arm are the reasons to seek one out. The CD-4 anti-skating calibrations are the reason a quad collector might pay a premium over a plain 1229.
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