london decca super gold
- Thread starter dougie834
- Start date
clivem2
pfm Member
I use the Trans-Fi Terminator. As standard this has 2 spikes where the wand sits in the // tracking "saddle". These spikes are normally metal on metal. Adding rubber damping under the spikes or changing the spikes to nylon removes every trace of harshness and improved the bass. Hence my thinking that a unipivot with damping will work well. My feeling is that Deccas put so much energy back into the arm that some form of damping is helpful. Mass will help but maybe damping is better.
topoxforddoc
pfm Member
I have been using are as since the late 70s. My record collection has not suffered in that time. I have had a maroon, gold and had my gold rebuilt be the Garrott Brothers. 3 years ago I found a mark IV C4E, which has been rebuilt by John Wright. All have been mounted in my last 70s Hadcock. I have had a number of MC carts incl a 2.5k Allaerts MC1B. But I still come back to the Decca.
Most of the various Deccas I have sold over the years have gone on Nottingham Analogue arms for which they were designed.
They do prefer a bit of arm mass but anything which isn't going to shake apart is good.
divedeepdog
pfm Member
Mine has a healthy blob of bluetack on it, I've resisted a deccapod because I do swap it about using an extra carrier.
Silicone seemed to make a big difference in a Hadcock.
Silicone seemed to make a big difference in a Hadcock.
Robert
Tapehead
The Decca (at least the London) has high-ish lateral compliance and very low vertical compliance. Technically splitting the compliance in this way can be beneficial in avoiding the effects of subsonic resonance, though the limited vertical compliance is responsible for the comments about limited tracking.
IME tracking can be marginal on hot stereo cuts with panned left/right signals. Of course the original design was intended for mono so that shouldn't be surprising.
This split compliance is likely behind the wide range of arm mass recommendations because what's right for vertical matching is wrong for lateral
So it's a compromise but certainly some arm damping helps.
A Decca with a good tip tracks well enough IMO and as others have said, sounds amazingly vibrant and alive.
PigletsDad
My intelligence test came back negative.
I have heard one sound absolutely wonderful in a SAEC arm; I guess perhaps a W308, but I can't remember.
topoxforddoc
pfm Member
You'll love it. I thought about buying it. But I didn't. No point in being a hoarder when I already have one of these beauties. It's the best Decca, bar the current Reference. Feel free to PM me if you want any advice.
Music freak
pfm Member
Crap ??!! .So I can believe that you simply assume I created the points I have stated?
I did not invent them. I am only relating vivid comments printed ( that stick in the mind from trade mags of the past)
Perhaps you place yourself higher than the various respected technical critics that happened to "once-" I emphasise the word for a reason for when ....THERE WERE REAL TECHNICAL CRITICS. Who noticed just a few annoying things about the continuing series that make up Decca cartridges. And yes the same experts printed tech read - out photos and figures, obtained from testing. Publishing the results , to back up the claims they made.
It was not like the present,:where '-in - fashion coffee table likes & dislikes are the peak of judgemental criteria.
Decca's cartridge design -by today's standards - is now lumbering & primitive / and , is clumsy in execution .
Additionally , to put it bluntly : for any interest in these 'alleged Hi Fi vinyl playing - needle boxes' : a lingering number of misguided people are required to play around continually, and convince themselves , they are the nirvana of vinyl playing.
To others wiser, they simply remind : "As if some kid got a similar idea...then using a square block, drove a roofing nail through it"
Remember there are '"suckers born every spin of a vinyl recording
topoxforddoc
pfm Member
In the late 70s, I worked for 3 years in hi-fi retail with Ken Kessler. Since then, I have used Deccas as my main cartridge. I remember the criticisms of Decca in those days. Quality control at Decca Special products was not at its best in those days, and a number of new cartridges were returned as faulty.
Deccas didn't work particularly well in a number of tonearms available at that time. Also, most vinyl addicts didn't pay so much attention to cleaning their LPs (I only ever play LPs, which have been wet cleaned on a RCM); a build up of dust on the low slung horizontal body and the barely protruding stylus assembly could lead to mistracking (and hence record wear). However, keep you records clean, and a Decca will track virtually anything (except the Telarc 1812 cannons).
However, the Decca is almost unique in using a design, which replicates most closely the cutting head on the lathe. The only other design was the vintage Neumann DST, which has been resurrected recently in the fiendishly expensive Tsar DST (USD10k). Some might say that all other cartridge designs are flawed, due to the inherent problems associated with a long slanted cantilever, which can flex and add coloration.
Deccas didn't work particularly well in a number of tonearms available at that time. Also, most vinyl addicts didn't pay so much attention to cleaning their LPs (I only ever play LPs, which have been wet cleaned on a RCM); a build up of dust on the low slung horizontal body and the barely protruding stylus assembly could lead to mistracking (and hence record wear). However, keep you records clean, and a Decca will track virtually anything (except the Telarc 1812 cannons).
However, the Decca is almost unique in using a design, which replicates most closely the cutting head on the lathe. The only other design was the vintage Neumann DST, which has been resurrected recently in the fiendishly expensive Tsar DST (USD10k). Some might say that all other cartridge designs are flawed, due to the inherent problems associated with a long slanted cantilever, which can flex and add coloration.
clivem2
pfm Member
Agreed, I run my Reference at 33k, I've tried 18k and 22k then settled on 33k.
Well actually the standard cartridge layout of a stylus on an angled cantilever connected to coils or magnets has at least as many, if different, shortcomings as the Decca designs. None I know of have a very linear magnetic circuit and the geometry means the sensor element movement is typically about 1/10 of the groove amplitude and at an angle. Its main benefit is presumably ease of manufacture and use since it is not accurate transcription.
Dynavector make some units with what look like (maybe) better magnetic linearity than all the others I have seen, which are more or less the same.
Pickup cartridges are the least accurate bits of a hifi system in different ways. Deccas have some shortcomings leading to high groove loading on difference signals but overall its layout produces a more accurate transcription of the groove than any "conventional" angled cantilever with non-linear magnetic circuit device.
As Charlie writes, keep your records clean.
wylton
Naim and Mana member
My Dynavector XXIImk2, sounds a bit too laid back for my tastes (LP12/Aro/pre-fix/Norton). I've bought a Garrard 401 and will transfer the Aro/Dyna on to it, but I'd love to try a Decca!
I do wet clean all of my records on a PRC3, so cleanliness shouldn't be a problem.
I do wet clean all of my records on a PRC3, so cleanliness shouldn't be a problem.
Patrick Dixon
Imagineer
It's hard to argue against such wisdom.