What's a real good arm for a Decca Cartridge?


I have a Decca London Super Gold with a paratrace stylus. It's sound as good as anything I've ever heard using my SME M2-12R arm on a rebuilt TD124. The problem is I want something that will track all my LPs and the SME just won't. After a bunch of tweaking, including adding tons of mass, it'll play 90% without issue. What arm will get me those extra 10%?
dhcod

Showing 3 responses by bdp24

@uberwaltz, I can answer your question. But first, let me clarify the issue of the Decca and London names. John Wright had long been a Decca employee (head of the department that made their cartridges), and when he bought the rights to the cartridge name and design from Decca, he changed the name to London. The name "Decca London" can be accurately used only in reference to one of the cartridges made by Decca, the model named the London. Other than that one model, a cartridge is either a Decca, or a London. I see the two names conflated regularly.

The Decca Blue was introduced in the early-70’s, and was also referred to as the Decca Mk.V. It was a drastic redesign of the Mk.IV, and ushered in the new era of Deccas. It had a conical stylus, and tracked at 3-3.5g. It was my first Decca, bought new in ’72 (rhyme unintended ;-). I know, I know, the London website states the Blue was introduced in ’74. But I bought one in ’72 after: 1- reading a review of cartridge by JGH in Stereophile, and seeing and hearing one in the system Bill Johnson delivered and set up at Audio Arts in Livermore, CA that same year.

John Wright will rebuild, restore, update, etc. any and all Decca or London cartridges, including the Blue. Where did you read about a John Wright-rebuilt Blue? The Blue had been discontinued by the time John bought the company, so there is no such thing as London Blue, only a Decca. At least that is my understanding.

Touche', @noromance. What I should have said is that if you have a Decca (is the op's a Decca, or a London?) in an SME, and you have mistracking, I would suspect the cartridge before the arm. Not all Deccas mistrack, but they are well known to not be the best tracking pickups around. The best examples are fine, others not so much. I never managed to get a hold of a Garrotted-version; I tried to pry one out of Ken Kessler's hands, but he wouldn't budge ;-) .

@dhcod: Are you certain it is the arm not the cartridge that is responsible for the mistracking? The current London’s are better in that regard than were the Decca’s, but tracking remains the design’s major failing. The SME has long been considered to be a poor match for the cartridge; something about the huge amount of mechanical energy it puts into an arm causing the SME’s knife-edge bearings to "chatter" (that’s why adding mass helps).

Arms popular amongst the Decca/London cognoscenti include the Sumiko MDC-800 ("The Arm"), Zeta, Hadcock (and other unipivots), Mission Mechanic, Fidelity Research, Helius Omega, Well Tempered, linear trackers including the Eminent Technology, TransFi Terminator, and London’s own. Art Dudley even liked the London Gray in a Rega 300, but he’s not a Decca nut. There are some older Audiogon threads on the same subject.

If you really want to go all in, get yourself a Townshend Rock, THE table for the Decca/London!