Dual

Dual's story begins in 1907, when brothers Christian and Joseph Steidinger started manufacturing clockwork mechanisms and gramophone parts in the Black Forest town of St. Georgen, Germany. In 1927, the brothers developed the "Dual-Motor" — a mechanism combining a spring-loaded clockwork drive with an electric motor, letting gramophones run on either power source. The innovation was successful enough that the company adopted the name Dual outright in 1935, the same year it began producing turntables under that name.

Dual went on to become the largest turntable manufacturer in Europe during the post-war era, employing more than 3,000 people across multiple factories and becoming genuinely synonymous with precision German engineering — the same clockwork-grade tolerances that built the company's first gramophone parts carried straight through into its turntables. Milestones followed throughout the following decades, including the 1963 launch of the 1009, one of the first truly capable automatic turntables, and the acclaimed 7 Series that followed, which went on to shape an entire era of hi-fi culture.

Today Dual is owned and run by Dr. Josef Zellner, who first joined the company as its export manager in the 1990s before taking the helm and leading a proud return to Dual's roots as a leading turntable brand. Now operating from Fuchstal, Germany, Dual continues to build manual and automatic turntables for a new generation of vinyl lovers, backed by a 5-year warranty the company offers "out of conviction." More than a century after two brothers started building clockwork mechanisms, Dual's turntables still carry that same founding idea: the precision of a well-made clock is the benchmark for a well-made turntable.