Introduction
London Decca cartridges are absolutely unique in both concept
and performance. The value for money is outrageous (in the
best possible way) as they put most high end cartridges to
shame in so many critical areas. The most immediate impression
given is of fabulous live feel to music - in other words,
notes start with lightening speed and decay with precision
- just as they should - this makes the average cartridge sound
almost glacial in its presentation. Those with slight hearing
loss do not always notice speed so this may not be important
to some folks. The next outstanding characteristic is huge
dynamic range - this makes the music so much more listenable
at low volumes that it is simply staggering. At normal levels
it makes for an exciting and highly entertaining experience.
However this is just the beginning - the London cartridges
have it all - in spades. Tonal accuracy, delicacy, seperation
and imaging.
I have heard Decca fans rave about these attributes with
great passion and put it down to personal preference. After
all these cartridges are a fairly old design and not exactly
high end prices. If they were THAT good, surely one would
expect a larger following. There are explantations for this
as these cartridges take a bit of care to get right. However
in a good system with the correct set up, these cartridges
are unsurpassed in most key aspects.
As with any product you will always find detractors - most
fault finding regarding the Londons circulate around lack
of bass and tracking ability. Having spoken to a number of
experts about these comments they can be explained largely
by the need for correct effective arm mass and a decent balanced
system.
Because the London is SO dynamic it can cause compression
effects in equipment - this instantly causes bass to suffer
- Compression effects can occure in all electronics from the
phono stage to the Loudspeaker drivers.However a good system
philosophy for ultimate performance is to start with a high
quality source signal and sort out the rest of the system
rather than dumb down the source which ultimately can never
achieve the best results.
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