Mike,
A very small world. I worked in that shop between 79-81 as the saturday boy. I got my appreciation of Deccas and valves from KK. My Garrott Bros Gold, Maroon and Hadcock came from that shop.
As for the tonearms. I think you may be right. The first tonearm was the FFSS with a rectangular shaped counterweight. Later came the International with an inverted unipivot. I think that spawned more than one model, but I can't remember how many versions there were. Will need to check.
Charlie
Yup. Pretty sure my first Decca arm (in about '66/67) was the FFSS, and it was a pig to cue; especially on the Thorens TD150 (sprung deck).
I had just left Christchurch when you were working there; I imagine you might have been native to that city.
Gosh this is all very familiar, I used to work on Church St (St.Pauls) - opp Burgate on other side of Bridge St. Used to see KK browsing in WH Smith regularly. He is quite scary. I also sold some Nagra kit to his best mate. It's a small world.
I think KK has been called a cult many times, though i may have misheard.....
I haven’t heard either the original Decca International or the later Decca arms. I remember there being an old stock item in Canterbury Hi-Fi, when I worked there in the late 70s. But I never listened to it. I bought the Hadcock instead!
Check out the associated speakers...
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=390829736786
Paul
A FFSS arm and cart has just appeared on teh eBays here in appropriate vintage context (nothing to do with me, just linking as it's a nice looking example). I bet that's a damn fine deck assuming it's possible to service it to something close to as-new condition. No one ever mentions the Connoisseur idlers, but IIRC that one cost more than a 301 in it's day.
I'm not such a big fan of the Decca, although they are certainly interesting. What they do illustrate is that moving coils are not the only choice. There has been too little investment in alternative technologies.
I know a guy who may sell as many high-end moving coil cartridges as anyone in the UK; privately he thinks most of them pretty poor. I know one US manufacturer of very, very expensive decks, who refuses to recommend any MCs...he prefers moving-iron cartridges (Soundsmith). If only some real investment had gone into the positive scan technique, the moving-iron, the mm and those strain gauge devices. Sadly, the markets probably too small now.
The Soundsmith moving iron cartridges are reverse-engineered Bang and Olufsen MMC units.
He wanted to buy the tooling from B&O but they had destroyed it, so copied one.
Soundsmith will rebuild B&O cartridges also, I believe.
Another oddball cartridge type is the Stax electret one.
I've heard one; it sounded inoffensive, but I heard it in an unfamiliar system, so it was hard to compare with anything I knew. I think it worked into a MM input; I don't remember there being any special electronics required.
The Technics low output MM could sound excellent too, and needed an MC amplification chain.