Decca London Super Gold Compatibility Question


Can someone tell me what happens when you use the Deccas with the wrong arm? Is it a tracking issue or will it just not sound good? I tried it with my SME M2-12R with a Yamamoto wood headshell and the results were not great. Hoping it's just compatibility and not something wrong with the Decca.
dhcod

Showing 3 responses by yeti42

I have a maroon in a Naim Aro unipivot, I had to drop the back of the arm by a mm or two to get the sound to fill out and there is a definite sweet spot for VTF and I have to make a new arm board to get the overhang right. Even with overhang 2mm too much I’m enjoying the result immensely, bar a little coarseness at the start of a side because of that overhang error but the sound has a lot of presence notwithstanding that, I have the red plastic bracket and the cartridge just slides up onto it, I had to reseat this as it moved a bit when I took the cap off and I didn’t get any sound at first. I remember it sounded thin before dropping the rear of the arm. 
The first step is to try to tune the adjustment by ear with the existing arm, dialing it in by numbers is only the start. Once you've got it as good as you can get it then is the time to decide whether to try a different arm.
A unipivot is what is recommended in the instructions that come in the cartridge box. Then again Art Dudley claimed to get good results with a maroon in a Rega arm. This with the addition of a Townshend outrigger and trough (the deck is a Rock mk2) was going to be my fallback if the Aro didn't work but what I'm hearing is tracking error at the start of the album not mistracking on transients. Getting the alignment to cross two null points rather than just failing to reach even one will deal with that but with an Aro that means boring a new arm board, fortunately I have a blank ready to go but the system is 800 miles away at the moment.