Decca London Club

[GP49]

I've just been given a pre-London Decca stereo cartridge.  It's a Decca SC4E.  This is from the late 1960s Decca Mk IV series, the first of their FFSS cartridges to be available in standard 1/2 inch mounting as well as a plug-in for a dedicated Decca tonearm.  They came in RC4 (spherical), C4E (elliptical) and SC4E (selected elliptical) models.

It looks to be in good working order.  The coils all measure properly; the diamond stylus has the polish acquired through playing but no evidence of a flat spot.  I do notice, at least externally, a more solid build quality than the Decca London cartridges that followed the Mk IV series by about ten years.  Instead of a housing made of thin sheet metal as on the Londons, it's encased in solid-feeling black plastic with a plastic cover plate.  It's also not as easy to get a look inside as with the Londons; the plastic cover plate appears to be glued on.

Undoubtedly the Mk IV models utilized less powerful magnetic materials than the Londons, making bigger magnets mandatory to maintain a reasonable output level.  I'd like to hear how it sounds but the thing is so heavy that I can't counterbalance it sufficiently to get to a reasonable tracking weight.  And, it's big; won't fit into some headshells!

[colin]

Hi Gene,

Lucky you!    I can only suggest you bolt whatever's necessary to the counterweight and find your biggest headshell, then get going!  The Decca is a 'from my cold dead hands' type of cartridge imo.  Good luck.

Rgds

[daiwok]

Blu tak with fishing lead is a quick and dirty solution 

[GP49]

Lucky you!    I can only suggest you bolt whatever's necessary to the counterweight and find your biggest headshell, then get going!  The Decca is a 'from my cold dead hands' type of cartridge imo.  Good luck.

I'm familiar with Deccas, since a Decca London is my "everyday" cartridge.  This one is so different from the Decca Londons (big vs. small, heavy vs. light, etc.) except for its operating principle which is identical.

I've had to add mass to the Decca London to make it match most tonearms, the SC4E should DEFINITELY be different there, too.

It looks as though the SC4E will fit...barely...into a spare headshell for my Garrard A70 record changer.  But first I'll need to evict the Stanton 500 cartridge that's been in there since time immemorial, and clean off the dust that has accumulated in the headshell!  AND get a big hex nut or something similar, and use electrical tape to hold it onto the counterweight.  The Decca Londons have worked best in damped or unipivot arms; the Garrard A70 has neither.

To be continued...

[GP49]

It didn't take long to set up the Decca SC4E in the Garrard A70...just for a quick play to see if it was worthwhile setting it up in the main system.

I had the Decca mounted up in a matter of minutes, after removing the Stanton 500 and the extra weight in the headshell.  The Decca is a three-wire hookup with common ground, so I just let one of the ground wires remain disconnected, tucked up under the headshell.  In the garage I found some flat washers that I glued together with contact cement, then secured to the counterweight with electrical tape.  That was sufficient to counterbalance the cartridge, so I did so and dialed in two grams on the Garrard's built-in spring for tracking weight.

Yes, this was a quickie!

I had moved the Garrard A70 to where its signal cables would JUST reach the phono input on my preamp.  Plugged it all in, turned on the system, and loaded a record.  I didn't want to trust the automatic mechanism, so I played the record manually.

It didn't sound very good.   

There was a spitty distortion on the music, getting worse as the sound got louder.  I rechecked the tracking weight with a separate gauge and confirmed it at 2.1 grams (the Garrard's scale is a bit off, but not THAT much so it would matter).  I tried lighter, to 1.5 grams, and heavier to 2.5 grams.  Nothing helped.  In fact, things got steadily worse.   

Then the music stopped entirely and the arm started to skate across the record.   

I knew this was bad.   

Demounting the headshell and taking a close look, I hoped that perhaps there was a giant dust ball.

But no...the stylus was gone.  There was no visible armature and the tieback string just lay there, attached to nothing.  In fact it was a bit frayed and rusty-colored where it had wrapped around the armature!   

I took a photograph.  The armature that was clearly visible previously (although that prior photo is a bit defocused) is definitely gone.

It was not fun, taking the Decca back out again and knowing the worst had happened.  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I pried off the thin plastic cover plate from the bottom of the cartridge (where the serial number is).  Then pried out the cartridge's guts from the plastic body, which is much thinner than I had thought, and also brittle (a small piece of it broke out).  That gave me enough access to see what had happened: the steel armature had cracked and was broken. 

I've heard that's the usual failure mode for Deccas that break; the armature breaks at the near-right-angle bend that it makes just below the vertical-sensing coils.  Since I had not yet broken a Decca before this, I hadn't seen it myself.

Unlike my Decca Londons which I have examined before, the SC4E had evidence of rust on what was left of the steel armature inside, so all I can figure is that the armature had rusted over the decades, and the process of playing a record was enough to finish it off.  This episode has been a reminder: as per the manufacturer in response to an inquiry I made when I got my first Decca London, do not clean Deccas with any liquid.  I can only imagine that water or anything aqueous can only worsen any rusting.  I don't know how this one had been stored, but a damp environment obviously wouldn't have helped, either. I also don't know if the tieback string is of a material that is damaged from getting wet.

To soothe my feelings, I'm playing some Haydn on the Decca London that's in my Garrard 301.  It's an expensive affair to have a Decca rebuilt, and that's what this one needs now.  With three Decca Londons, I'm not going to get it done.  I guess it's headed for the dustbin...   

BEFORE:



AFTER:

[colin]

Gene, that is sad indeed.  When I think of the journey my Decca had, flying around loose inside a home made cabinet with an 8lb Collaro platter, I thank my lucky stars it worked at all, and only the Decca arm got totalled.  Mine only gets used for transcriptions to digi, but I'm sure to be careful every time I use it now. 

Btw, I have seen them for sale in the condition yours is in  .............  and sell! 

Rgds

[GP49]

Btw, I have seen them for sale in the condition yours is in  .............  and sell!

First one on Lenco Heaven who wants it and asks, can have it for the price of shipping.  Just be prepared to spend hundreds (no matter which, $ or ₤ or €) to have a rebuild done.

As is, of course.  I'm not even going to glue the guts back in, as a rebuilder will have to take it out anyway.

PM me...

================================================

UPDATE, June 5, 2009:

The Decca SC4E is on its way across the Pacific to one of our members, who intends to have it rebuilt with a line-contact stylus.

May he enjoy many hundreds of LPs with it!

[jloveys]

Hello Decca friends,
Two month ago I traveled to Nothern England to collect a nice Garrard hammergray deck from an old audiophile
and he was so happy it goes in good hands that he gave me a big box of "accessories".
I opened it back home and surprise: a mint SME 3012 tonearm,  Two Decca ffs H4E mint in the box cartridges, SME fluid damper, SME accessories (extra weights,...)  a Stylovue and a stylus scope inspector ( in box) a Keith monks record weight / strobo, hundred more very useful things, and 60 original audio high fidelity books from 1955 to 1965. One of the Decca's is fitted in an SME arm extention about 5 cm. long to match the SME 3012 bayonet.
I really want to try the Decca H4E, is it OK to use it with the SME 3012 extention, making a real long tonearm. Shal I use it with damping fluid?
I would like to try the other H4E with my Graham Phantom tonearm, but connects are sliding slots, so how to fix and connect this cartridge in a modern tonearm with pins ?
Thanks for help.
Jean

[GP49]

I really want to try the Decca H4E, is it OK to use it with the SME 3012 extention, making a real long tonearm. Shal I use it with damping fluid?   I would like to try the other H4E with my Graham Phantom tonearm, but connects are sliding slots, so how to fix and connect this cartridge in a modern tonearm with pins?   Thanks for help.
Jean

As I understand it, that's exactly what the extension is intended to do.  It  doesn't make the SME any longer than it would be all by itself with a standard headshell; it's simply an interface that will put the Decca H4E stylus in the same position as a conventional cartridge in a standard headshell. 

As for using an H4E in the Graham, I don't think there is any way to do that.  What you need would be an SC4E!   

One that works!

[jloveys]

Well... I tryed the H4E with SME 3009 S2 tonearm on my TD124MKII and the sound is very good and glorious, it
just mistracks every 20 seconds with a strident hiss... I have to work with damping and alignment I guess...

[GP49]

Usually the SME Series Two or Three arm is not considered an ideal match to the Decca; but at least in part, that is due to the Decca London Cartridges, which operate best under a high-mass condition even though they are very low-mass.  The SME in nine-inch version is generally considered too low-mass, but of course yours is twelve-inch and the H4E head is much heavier than the Londons so that is probably NOT an issue.

The Deccas, when properly mounted as an H4E and adapter would be, put a lot of energy into the arm; some say the SME knife-edge vertical pivots aren't firm enough and tend to rattle with low-compliance cartridges such as the Deccas.  I have some doubts about that idea but have noted that Deccas perform better in damped arms. 

Deccas are not the best-tracking cartridges around.  Experimentation with tracking weight may solve your problem.  Also try loading it at 10KΩ instead of the "usual" 47KΩ.  With some combinations of tonearm/cable/preamp capacitance, the higher loading causes a rising high end which accentuates the sound of borderline tracking.

[colin]

Hi,

This Decca works fine in the AT1005,



and in a Jelco arm (with some blutac and ballast on the counterweight) last summer at Peter's place -



Credits to Ivan for the second picture.   Ivan where are you?

[GP49]

A few days ago I had a visitor, a friend with a Decca London cartridge.  He wanted to trade it to me for some used tubes.  It is a Mark V (Grey, spherical stylus) which, he said, sounded funny.  Once he was on his way home with a few used tubes, it was easy enough to swap out my Decca Gold Elliptical I was playing on the Garrard 301/Rabco SL-8E, and swap in the Grey.

The Grey has a substantially higher output than the Gold (and it is specified as such), which is always an advantage if it doesn't overload the phono stage, because whatever hum comes from the Decca's three-wire system is that much farther down from the signal.  But it didn't sound right, especially on stereo records. "Shouty" would be the best word to describe it.  The lower midrange sounded elevated and rough, compared to the Gold.  Detail and definition were lacking.  The problem was much less on mono records, which sounded better.  Paralleling the two channels using the mono switch on my preamp made the stereo records sound better, too.  But full-time mono would not be acceptable as a permanent solution.  Sorry, Brian!   

At first I thought the thin sheet metal housing might be vibrating.  But it all seemed tight.  I overlaid a thin layer of modeling clay onto it.  No change. 

Tapping the Grey revealed that something was rattling inside the cartridge.  Tapping the Gold did not bring out the same sound of vibration; it was solid and tight.  Time to take off the lid of the Grey to see what was happening. 

The source of the vibration didn't take long to track down, especially since the problem was far worse in stereo than in mono.  A bit of poking found one of the vertical-sensing coils physically loose on its iron core (refer to Daiwok's earlier post with photos of a disassembled Decca Grey to see what they look like).  Perhaps vibration in the cartridge body was causing this coil to rattle and to generate unwanted "noise", or perhaps vertical stylus movement, generating a signal in this coil, was causing it to vibrate electromagnetically at a sympathetic frequency? 

Whatever...a touch of clear fingernail lacquer diluted with acetone so it would seep in between the coil's plastic hub and the iron core, tightened things up.  After a few minutes for the lacquer to dry, the problem was completely gone.  Daiwok's photos do not show any sealer or locking paint on the vertical-sensing coils, so I don't know how Decca REALLY kept those coils from rattling, other than holding them down with the magnet that's in between the iron cores; but this cheap fix worked!

[daiwok]

Gene,

Great post ! The output on the grey is something like 7mV ! or 7.5mV and I agree it gives a degree of shouting due to the loading and high output. The stylus shape is nowhere as refine as the gold elliptical. It seems you have found a great solution to fix the rattle - something I have to remember if I come across this again.

[hatehifi]

Just stopping by as David suggested for Chris (Autobayer). I've mentioned elsewhere that Germany's long-standing (decades) Decca importer is personally known to me. Should anyone want one of their cartridges, I'd ask Hermann Hoffman if he wants to offer his 'best shot' pricing.