Reminiscing about Dual and AR turntables

I took my AR XA to a machine shop and had the tone arm's bearing well on the T-bar subchassis cut out. I enlarged the hole in the table's top plate myself, and mounted a Formula 4 unipivot arm in the hole on the T-bar. The AR ES-1 is almost identical to the XA/B, but with a mounting plate for either the optional AR arm or one of your choice. For the price the ES-1 sells for, I would opt for it over the XA/B.

Erik, I am not sure what you mean by “better and easier to buy”.  The vintage Thorens turntables that receive a lot of attention are the TD 124 and the TD 125. There are later models that are also admired by some and used by many. I think all of those turntables are inherently far superior to the AR and generally the Dual turntables as well. The Thorens  turntables may be more plentiful on the used market because more of them were purchased to begin With. Therefore I guess you could say they are “easier to buy”. I am not a big fan of the TD 124 myself, but that’s just my opinion.

@lewm 

By "easier to buy" i really meant easier to own. I can buy them and leave them alone instead of buying and modding or fiddling with them. :) 

Best,

E

I had an AR turntable back in 1984. The table itself wasn't bad and was fairly attractive looking. But that stock tonearm.... What a piece of Taiwan junk. Poor tracking,  you could see the arm sway back and forth as it played. It had a resonance that came from the motor that was audible during quiet music passages. The head shell developed connection problems if you removed it to much. The dealer "begged" me to buy the table without the stock arm as he was well aware of these short comings. He said a Premier MMT tonearm would be a much better choice with that table if I could spring for another $100 or so. But back then, my funds were limited and went completely stock to save some coins. Big mistake. I later listened to a friends AR table with the Premier MMT tonearm and it sounded absolutely wonderful.