DECCA unipivot tonearm

[Merijn]

Hello all, Last week I got this Decca London International tonearm for free. I cannot find anny comments on the arm so maybe you can tell me if it is worth to try? thanks,

[nat]

The Decca International is an odd arm.  It was, I think, developed especially for the Decca London cartridges which are themselves pretty odd.  The arm is a unipivot (Decca Londons are commonly thought to work best in unipivots) and the arm must rely more on damping than on rigidity since its made of various bits of plastic and metal, and the cartridge mounting arrangement doesn't inspire confidence.  But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the combination apparently worked very well (if the London was a good one and so on).  I once had one of the very early ffss setups with an even less sophisticated arm, and it sounded remarkably good, even by modern standards. I would guess that if you are aiming for the goal of absolute rigidity or, alternately, very low arm mass,  this would not be a good arm for you, but with more forgiving cartridges it might do very well.   (If memory serves, you can't adjust antiskate on the arm, which might mean that you should aim for a cartridge with a similar tracking force to the Londons, something around 2 grams.)

[Merijn]

I can fix you some pictures and copies of the manual if you like...

[templehearth]

I have a Decca International which is missing the plug and leads, and also the mounting collar-anyone have parts, or entire arm forf sale?

[cafe latte]

Now you just need a Decca super Gold cart to go with your arm if you have a grand to spare. I have one and they really are an amazing sounding cart when you get the naff stupid plastic clips to make contact . They are rather odd looking carts too looking like they just fell out of a Christmas cracker, but you cant argue how they sound.
Regards
CL

[vinylrayk]

Hello all, Last week I got this Decca London International tonearm for free. I cannot find anny comments on the arm so maybe you can tell me if it is worth to try? thanks,

Is it new in the box, or used?

I owned a Decca International about 35 years ago. At that time, the headshell was a plug-in low mass "L" shaped skeleton affair. I used it with a Stanton 681A (conical) at 1.5g and then with an ADC XLM at 0.6g. That arm worked very well with high compliance cartridges and low VTF's. I'm not familiar with the details of the current production headshell.

The antiskate bias is adjustable by sliding the magnet collar up or down on the mounting post.

The reason I asked about new/used is that, once the damping fluid has been installed, it will run out and gum up the magnetic pivot suspension if laid on its side for any significant length of time. What that pretty much means is that, once the damping fluid has been installed, you can't ship it anywhere! I sold mine to another local fellow hand-to-hand.

You will need much patience to set it up and balance it but, once set, it will be stable.

[jsnider]

Private message me if you're interested in selling it. If anyone is. Love this arm.

[awkwardbydesign]

I have one of these for my Decca London Supergold (just retipped by John Wright), but I haven't installed it yet. I also bought a metal headshell from here-
TECHNICAL & GENERAL
No Web Address
Email : Click Here
Tel : (+44) 01892 654534
It's the same as the AR Sugden SAU2 headshell.
And new silicone fluid from here-
http://www.turntablebasics.com/ He is very slow and doesn't answer emails, but the stuff arrives eventually.
I used this combo years ago and really rate it; that's why I never let it go, even when I had no TT. No idea if it works with non Deccas; never tried it.
New wiring from here if you want; http://www.trans-fi.com/tonearmwireinstructions.htm
GB clamp or similar for the Decca, too.

[hal55]

I have a modified version of this arm which has been rewired and has a metal headshell. Early days with it, I've only just installed it on a SP10. So far really enjoying it, it's a great arm and very musical and, IMHO, very charasmatic if that makes sense.

Hal55