Decca London Super Gold Compatibility Question

I used a 12" Jelco 750L for years with excellent results. Now an 12" 850L with even better sound. I had a Decca SG in an Ittok once and it wasn't a good match. It would jump out of the groove sometimes and break up on Zamfir's pan flute.

I have a maroon in a Naim Aro unipivot, I had to drop the back of the arm by a mm or two to get the sound to fill out and there is a definite sweet spot for VTF and I have to make a new arm board to get the overhang right. Even with overhang 2mm too much I’m enjoying the result immensely, bar a little coarseness at the start of a side because of that overhang error but the sound has a lot of presence notwithstanding that, I have the red plastic bracket and the cartridge just slides up onto it, I had to reseat this as it moved a bit when I took the cap off and I didn’t get any sound at first. I remember it sounded thin before dropping the rear of the arm. 

There are several tonearms that work well with the London Decca series cartridges, the Fidelity Research FR-64 and FR-66 being the most notable (and among the most expensive).  I have used Ortofon, Jelco and the Thomas Schick tonearms with good but not great results.  I found that the Pear Audio Cornet 2 tonearm unipivot works very well with the Decca Gold.  This is an updated version of the Nottingham tonearm designs, so you might start there.

Some have reported that the Dynavector DV-507 works well but I have not tried this combination myself.  A friend of mine runs his Decca cartridge on a Pete Riggle Woody tonearm and claims that it's the best pairing for the Decca series.  I'm skeptical but I have not yet had a chance to hear it so I'll pass it along as an unendorsed recommendation.

The first step is to try to tune the adjustment by ear with the existing arm, dialing it in by numbers is only the start. Once you've got it as good as you can get it then is the time to decide whether to try a different arm.