Vinyl Warm Up Time

@noromance:

Yeah, getting the Decca to the London office was my responsibility. London requested that I send it via UPS, and I was flabbergasted (how’s THAT for an old word?) to learn that such a small, light package cost over a hundred bucks to ship from Washington State to London England. When I was selling vintage drums on ebay (over a thousand transactions---not all of them for drums, with 100% positive feedback) in the first decade of the new century, shipping a drumset to Europe didn’t cost much more than that.

I agree with you, the increase in prices the new London owners have instituted is downright shocking. I bought my Super Gold in the 90’s, and iirc at that time it’s price was $1200. By the time of John’s retirement, I believe it had crept up to $1595. After deciding to find myself a Decca Mk.4, I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to acquire one before John Wright announced his decision to retire. It was a while before it was announced that new parties had arranged to keep the London brand going, and I wondered if anyone but John could make such unusual cartridges. And if so, with the same level of expertise as that of John. I won’t have an answer to that question until I receive my rebuilt Decca 4.

I’ve always loved the look of the Blue/Gold etc. Deccas, and the London Reference even more so. The Mk.5’s (Blue, Gold, etc.) have a rather aggressive body shape---especially the front end, and the Reference has a very bold, masculine looking body design and build. There is a current AudiogoN thread with the topic of how important the look of components is to members, and though I’m not overly concerned with looks, with the cartridge I for some reason feel differently. That’s why I couldn’t live with the London Jubilee; it’s body shape is aesthetically displeasing to me. Does that make me shallow?  The look of the Decca Mk.4 isn't as good as the Super Gold and Reference, but it's not as bad (imo) as the Jubilee.

@noromance: I meant to make this point:

In the description of the London Jubilee on the London website, it is stated "The design profile and shape took design clues (I believe they meant to say design cues) from the earlier SC4E (the Decca 4 with an elliptical stylus)." The Jubilee features the line contact stylus I ordered (the same stylus the Super Gold is fitted with).

The Jubilee is now priced at $5,895, the Super Gold $2,895. My rebuilt Decca 4 will be basically a vintage-body style Jubilee, perhaps slightly superior to the Super Gold (though the Decapod raises its sound quality). Considering those prices, I consider my rebuilt Decca 4 to be a bargain. I'm going to mount it on my Zeta arm/Townshend Audio Elite Rock table

I read somewhere the John Wright has agreed to be available for technical consultation to the new London team, so I’m fairly confident their workmanship will be of good quality.

@noromance:

It’s been mostly positive. The London office responded promptly to most of my emails, and provided a contact in the USA (in Green Bay, WI), which provides some reassurance. I received immediate confirmation of my payment having been received, and an invoice number. But my email asking for details on the tracking weight of the conical London stylus for some reason went unanswered. One other email also went unanswered (see below).

The cost of my order (installing a new cantilever, cantilever tie back cord, and line contact stylus on a Decca 4RC pickup) totaled $938, with a diagnostic fee of $150 and return shipping of $100.75, is not too terribly bad, though I would have been happier if the diagnostic fee were to have been waived if I went ahead with the order. That’s been common in the car repairs I’ve had done.

After hearing about the Decca 4 on the LencoHeaven website I’ve kept my eyes open for one. Decca radically changed the design of their pickups with the introduction of the Decca Blue (and related models), both in the construction of the pickup body and the type of magnets employed. The Decca 4 is said to have a somewhat different sound than the Blue/Gray/etc. models, and is free of the horrible plastic mounting design of those models. When I had Brooks Berdan order my London Super Gold, I had him ask John Wright to build it with the Decapod mount, a vast improvement over the plastic one.

Decca 4RC’s come up for sale only once or twice a year, and go for anywhere from around $500 to $600 or $700 in very used condition (the original styluses always need replacing, as the Model 4 dates back to the 1960’s, and rarely have had their styluses replaced). I saw a Decca 4RC show up on ebay in a condition I had never seen before: no stylus, no cantilever, no tie back cord. WTH?! At the same time there was also another Model 4, but with all it’s parts in place. The complete pickup was listed in an auction, with the bidding over $300 on the auctions first day. The pickup missing the stylus/cantilever/tie back cord had a Buy It Now price of $200, with a Make An Offer option.

I considered my option: 1- wait to see what the bidding went to on the complete pickup, and risk loosing out on the incomplete pickup. I knew the complete pickup would need at least a new stylus, and who knows what condition its cantilever and tie back cord are in? 2- On the other hand, if I got the incomplete pickup I could get not only a new stylus, but also a new cantilever and tie back cord, in other words essentially a completely new pickup (in the listing I could see the condition of the pickup body was excellent).

So I emailed London, asking the price of replacing on a Decca 4RC the stylus, cantilever, and cord, and also just the stylus. I received no response. I decided to make an offer on the incomplete pickup, half the Buy It Now price ($100). I knew that offer would most likely be declined, but ya gotta start somewhere. Sure enough, the offer was declined. So I then offered $150, which was accepted. I now had a gutless Decca 4, and again emailed London to get an estimate on the complete rebuild. I was pretty happy to find out that is was $670 with a conical stylus (the stylus the 4RC came with), with an extra $268 for a line contact stylus (which I went for).

The complete Decca 4 ended up selling for just about the $670 estimate London quoted me, and since that pickup would still need at least a new stylus, I’m happy I went for the gutted 4RC. This pickup will complete my cartridge needs (three turntable and arms, the third waiting a few years for a Decca 4), all of the Decca/London design. Not for everybody, but what is?

Thanks for that info @dogberry. I currently have a Decca 4RC at the London/Decca headquarters about to be rebuilt with a new line contact stylus, armature (the flat "cantilever" onto which the stylus is attached), and tie back cord. The 4RC preceded the Decca Mk. V (the first Decca I owned, bought in 1973), with a different motor structure than the Deccas that followed it (starting with the Mk. V).  The guys on the Lenco Heaven website got me interested in the 4RC, which reportedly has a different sound than the Mk. V onward. It also is free of the flimsy plastic mounting bracket long used by Decca and even London.

I can’t speak about the Ikeda cartridge (mentioned by @slaw as being similar to Londons and Decca in not having a mechanical damping material), but Londons and Deccas have a tie-back cord (running from just above the stylus back to the pickup body), the cord material being non-heat transferring in nature (it is some sort of thread I believe). Of course they both have normal styluses, and in place of a cantilever a wide L-shaped metal blade to which the stylus is attached. The blade is not run at an angle, but rather straight up to the cartridge’s magnets and coils. But while "normal" cartridges commonly have some form of rubber damper located where the cantilever is attached to the cartridge body, the Londons and Deccas do not. So while their styluses and cantilever blades may experience the same "heating" as do normal designs, because of being rubber damper-free there is one less cause of change in the cartridges sound as it plays longer.

My favorite hi-fi retailer, Brooks Berdan (widely acknowledged as a turntable set-up expert) "ran in" every cartridge he sold, putting (I believe) about 20 hours of playing time on it before releasing the table to it's owner. After those 20 hours, he realigned the cartridge, to compensate for any changes in the cart's suspension. Everyone knows a cart's suspension "relaxes" after a certain amount of playing time, just as does the suspension of loudspeaker drivers. 20 hours may not completely relax the suspension, which may take up to 100 hours. Deccas and Londons neither need nor benefit from run-in; they have no suspension, which puts greater demands on the tonearm (arm tube stiffness, bearing quality).  

The above admittedly comes from one unschooled in the related sciences, so may be ignored. But I wonder how much heat is being produced (see below), and how quickly that heat is dissipated in the heat-conducting materials of the cartridge (stylus, cantilever). 

What this topic brings to mind is the degree to which the stylus riding in the LP groove may be heating up the vinyl. Walter Davies of The Last Factory (makers of Last Record Preservative) claimed that the heat created by that stylus/groove contact is the cause of record wear, the heat causing tiny chips of the vinyl to be dislodged from the groove wall. I personally am more concerned with my LPs than I am with cartridge warm-up time. But that’s just me.

@lewm: Did I miss someone else's mention of London (and/or Decca for that matter)? When someone has already mentioned a product I make a habit of crediting them. I took a second look, and still don't see London or Decca.

Get yourself a London pickup. No suspension.