Decca London Super Gold Compatibility Question

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.

Unipivots are not right for the Decca. Lots of resonance reflects back into the arm....you need solid bearings.

Sorry stringreen, I gotta disagree with you on this one.  Not all unipivots work well with the Decca cartridges but those that do work better than gimbaled or tonearms w/ captured bearings - IMO.

dhcod, I haven't tried a Moerch tonearm with the Decca (never even occured to me to try it) but having owned a DP-6 in the past I would guess that this is not a good match.  YMMV

Classic match for the Decca was something like Hadcock 228 unipivot. I've used Decca since 1978 on a Hadcock with silicone damping - Maroo, Garrott Brothers Gold and a John Wright rebuilt C4E.

It should work pretty well with that arm. Try the SME headshell. Maybe add a little mass.

Thanks bpoletti. I did this and the Decca came alive! Quite a bit of surface noise but wow. So immediate sounding!

Now trying to deal with a little thin sounding bass. Setup is definitely finicky.

You need a higher mass arm. Deccas can sound bass shy in a low mass arm. Try adding more weight to the headshell - I use brass bolts- and add more weight to the counterweight. Surface noise comes with the territory.