When I was a teenager in the 1977, my father bought me a stereo set made by Pioneer with a PL-112D turntable and Ortofon F-15E cartridge: I was totally satisfied with it, lively sound, no fedback at all but about ten years after it gave up spinning, probably the belt went broken. An aunt of mine gave me his Technics SL-3110 (it's the completely manual and black version of the 3200) for free because it was a gift of her former boy-friend and she didn't want to have around something recalling him.
The Pioneer was sold when my mother decided to empty the attic without telling anything to me.
The sound was worse than Pioneer one, dull with a clear sensibility to acoustic feedback (it was placed in a rack): in 1988 I bought my first CD player and the Technics was not able to compare with the new technology. During the years I tried to improve the analogic sound changing the cartridges but it was useless, Shure M75 ED T2 after the Ortofon, then a Goldring 1006 and then again a Grado Red. The sound was always dull without soundstage until the 2004 when I bent the cantilever of the Grado and decided to give up with vinyl: the Technics was abandoned.
Just a year ago I decided to buy a Dual 1219 to listen again to my vynil collection and I give it to a guy skilled in restoration and servicing of Dual turntables. I was also so lucky to won an auction for a NOS Acutex 312 for only 35 €: well now I'm really fond of analogic sound, it's very lively with a big and deep soundstage, many miles way better of The Technics SL-3110 one, and can be compared with the sound of my CD player (Marantz CD 17 mkII). There is absolutely no acoustic feedback, whatever the listening volume, I can say that I'm very happy with the 1219, but obviously these Dual idler wheels can give a very good sound only if perfectly serviced. Rumble? No issue for me: yes if you put your ears very close to the turntable with no sound when the Dual is spinning you can hear a little noise coming from the motor, but it isn't transmitted to the loudspeakers, so if you listen to the music to more than a meter away from the turntable even with just a very low volume the noise is really inaudible.
Furthermore the Dual 1219 it is a fully automatic turntable (if you want, but also manual) and it is very comfortable to use, no more "Bump - Bump" at the end of the record because you were absent-minded, or because you were called to another room by your wife or daughter, or son.
The specs often tell nothing about the sound and this is just my experience: the Dual 1219 sounds much, much better than my Technics SL-3110, even I must admit that I didn't try to mount the Acutex 312 on the Technics: it gives me a so beautiful sound mounted and perfectly aligned on the Dual 1219 that I won't take it away from here forever! The Techincs sounded crap with four different cartridges (five to tell the truth, last month I tried also a brand new Ortofon Concorde DJ night Pro for pure curiosity - rent from a friend of mine - but the final result didn't change) so I think that it don't deserve any other attention. ,
