Thinking of trying a Decca Gold but not sure if it will work on the AN Arm One v2 as I’ve read it needs to be mounted on a unipivot or arm with plenty of damping. Is this going to be a bad match?
I used mine in an RB300, Alphason Opal and Excalibur, but always on a Rock, so with damping. It never seemed that fussy, always sounded like a Decca!
Thanks, what do they sound like, have had Benz Micro, Lyra, Dynavector, Supex, ZYX, Troika etc in the past are they similar to any of those?
They’re rather unique. The sound happily goes beyond dynamic towards edgy, they need careful loading if you want to avoid over bright, but they are kind of addictive. They aren’t subtle, but they are good fun.
When I phoned the manufacturer about getting one I bought fixed up, he was very quick to offer a super gold for a very good price, might be worth trying them first.
Is that John Wright?
I think it was presence audio, will check later
They’re the lowthers of the cartridge world…
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One of my mates had one for a long time with stacked quads - it was seriously holographic and being there with the right material.
I used to have a silver Garrott Microscanner which was fabulous . The C4E is of much better design in my opinion . It had a proper body unlike the London and bigger magnet assembly . Scary tracking force but I never had any wear issues with it at all .
Doesn’t Phil (papa…) use one?
Yep, on Alphason HR100S, on a Voyd. He loves it.
Precisely this, fast + dynamic can be quite alluring but ultimately found wanting.
I heard one on a Garrard 401 & hadcock unipivot, bloody brilliant, but picky as hell over vinyl quality.
Fast & dynamic & exciting, not an all rounder, but most other things sound boring afterwards.
I am a big fan. They have a completely different set of compromises than all the others.
Most cartridges are designed more to deal with imperfectly flat, non-concentric records and dust. The Decca is not tolerant at all, but rather than having a sensing element which moves far less than the groove due to the cantilever length the sensing element of a Decca has its sensing element sitting almost on the stylus.
It is not a good choice if one only has one cartridge since some of your LPs won’t play but overall my favourite on good records.
Once when we were visiting a friend who has a turntable with 2 arms he demonstrated the difference between a van Allaerts(?) and Decca (C4E I think) to my wife and I. Sheenagh is a musician with no interest in hifi and all she said was “why do you ever use that one” meaning the expensive MC.
In fact on some records the Decca wouldn’t track, but on the one we were listening to it was probably the biggest increment of better I have ever heard in a hifi comparison.
I have a Decca Gold but the EMT TT it goes on needs me to service it, must get round to it.
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I’ve still never heard one.
Thanks Frank, have just ordered a new Decca Gold so looking forward to this.
Fortunately I don’t have any old records and the ones I do have are all warp free and very flat so hopefully none will have any issues.
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Cart arrived today and it may be knackered.
Set it up as per the manual and protractor with 1.5 gm downforce and .75 gm antiskate and the left channel is distorting like a bastard with a really loud hum on both channels. Tried mixing and matching downforce & antiskate and even VTA but still no joy.
Quick google seems to indicate it may be an open lateral coil so will have to try and find a multimeter now.
The joys of Decca’s , does it have the pod fitted?
No it’s just a basic Decca Gold with the red plastic mount.