Decca cartridge experiences

Interesting you should bring up the issue of hum, which I conquered just last night! The Decca tracked quite well in a Mayware I had mounted on an AR-XA, and given it is a Decca, even in this modest 'table it matched or beat my two "high-end" spinners with other cartridges, one being a Maplenoll, the other being an Audiomeca. But on the AR it hummed, a problem which, once the music started, disappeared into the background. On the Maplenoll, however, not a bit of hum, and though there is a ground wire to the arm, I have not connected it to ground, an unexpected result.

My Decca has four pins (the ground wires connected together via a looped wire), does yours? The Maplenoll has a lead platter, and so perhaps this is shielding the motor. As with some head-amps and phono stages, you just have to move things around, connect and disconnect ground wires, try your tonearm wire in different positions and so on (this is the "bitch" and "hate" part of the Decca experience). Without knowing what your 'table is I can come up with nothing else. But there is a turntable mat made out of graphite, the Boston Mat1, which might double as shielding of some sort. It also sounds - from a design point - superb. The Maplenoll also features a damping trough at the headshell, with the result that the Decca tracks perfectly (so far) in this set-up, sounding like a "normal" cartridge (now I have to play with viscosity and so on).

If you want your Decca to track superbly, then get yourself a Decca tonearm! While this is dissed as cheap, it is quite a brilliant piece of engineering (pre-empting the Platine Verdier and Schroeder tonearms), and Ken Kessler, for instance, keeps his Decca set up in one, which he considers still superior in the usual Decca ways to his Koetsu Urishi in SME 10 turntable! Don't give up! And thanks for contributing.

My Decca only has three pins, that's why I strapped the two ground wires for the arms. The noise is more of a very loud buzzing, along with some hum; precisely the sound a normal (four pin) cartridge makes when one of the wires is not connected to one of the pins. I have tried strapping the two ground wires, NOT strapping the two and connecting only one of them, moving the wires around, not gounding the table, grounding the table. Nothing helps. Physically, the cartridge seems to be intact, and it does make great sounds; but combined with a level of noise that makes it unusable. Thoughts?

BTW, my table is a VPI HW19 MkIV.

Damn those Deccas! In my Mayware one of the tonearm wires is contacting the walls of the tonearm inside, giving the occasional loud buzz as the tonearm travels across the record, and so I must re-wire. If you have another tonearm, connect the Decca to it and see if the buzz persists (just tape the two negative cartridge clips together for contact for purposes of this experiment). I also get buzzing from the transformers from my tube amps, which, however, disappeared when I mounted the Decca on the Maplenoll. Once, I used toothpaste to clean the contacts on the plastic bracket as well as the pins. This is not as stupid as it sounds, as nothing removes oxidation from metal as quickly and thoroughly as toothpaste, and it smells good! This you should try first, as it is the easiest to accomplish and perhaps there is no contact. Also pry the little copper tabs in the bracket out a bit for better contact. If all else fails, then buy a Decca International tonearm, which is being sold for 40 Euros including shipping! Man I hate those Deccas. Man I love those Deccas. If we can get interest up on these then we can create an organization for the betterment of Deccas!

Frogman,

Now I remember a similar experience with a three-pin Decca which belonged to a friend. At first it sounded fine, in fact quieter than mine. But it suddenly developed this loud buzzing which I couldn't get rid of. Since it didn't belong to me, I simply disconnected it and went back to my own Decca. I never did find out what was wrong with it, but I have heard that the armature of older Deccas can rust: they do eventually die. I hope this isn't the case with yours, but if after all of the previous experiments it still buzzes, then slide the cover back and see what you can see. If it's toast, then I'd try something desperate like opening it and pouring an anti-rust agent in it, or something like that. Ken Kessler of HiFi News is probably the world's leading expert on Deccas, maybe you could e-mail him. Or ask London/Decca themselves, I think a refurbishment is much cheaper than buying new. Is it worth all the trouble? I think so, but mine is now working perfectly, and my previous one, which I foolishly sold, also worked very well. The problem with Deccas is that once you hear one working well, you never forget. Good Luck! Let me know how it goes.

All my experience with Deccas is very old. (But by George, this thread is tempting me... agh!) I too remember it did well in the Keith Monks (you hardly ever saw one of those). It also worked in the ERA tt's stock arm, a plastic girder-shaped device, and of all things it worked in the Sugden Connoisseur belt-drive's gimbal-bearing arm. I hate to think of how sloppy those bearings were, but the design did not frighten a Decca.

Come to think of it, I have a BD2 in the horrible crawl space that serves for a basement. No, no, no... !