Cantilever 'haze'

[magiccarpetride]

I keep hearing people mention 'cantilever haze' which, according to some accounts, becomes apparent once you hear the 'magic' of Decca C4E cartridge (which has no cantilever to speak of).

However, Decca C4E is notorious for being notably 'temperamental' (some compare it to vintage British automobiles); people are encountering a lot of quality control issues with it. Also, reports of mis-tracking abound. So according to many testimonials, this cartridge a blessing-and-a-curse type of a component.

Which makes me wonder: given the advantages of cantilever-less cartridges (i.e. the absence of cantilever haze and the amazing speed gained through the more direct signal path), why aren't some other cartridge manufacturers building cantilever-less cartridges? Does Decca own patent rights or what?

I mean, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the many disadvantages of having a metal tube suspended via some rubber 'ring' vibrate and relay the signal. It is definitely desirable to eliminate that 'middle man' and shorten the distance between the tracked grooves and the coils/magnets that generate electrical signals.

It would be great if we were to see some competition in that arena. A little bit of a price war, and also hopefully a bit better quality control (Decca is historically notorious for its spotty quality control process).

[karma67]

good points,id like to think though due to mine being rebuilt and retipped any quality control issues are long gone :rolleyes:

[magiccarpetride]

good points,id like to think though due to mine being rebuilt and retipped any quality control issues are long gone :rolleyes:

Also, another important point is the extreme difficulty of setting the Decca cartridge properly. Seems like you need to pay a qualified dealer to set that cartridge for you. And even then, even when properly calibrated and fitted, it is known to mistrack and seems picky which LPs it wants to play.

So maybe a competitor could take those issues and solve them somehow, while retaining all the good aspects of the cantilever-less cartridge?

[karma67]

i found my c4e a doddle to set up,the tip looks in line with the cartridge body which is your only point of reference for alignment,that was a concern,the actual stylus tip is clearly visible for aligning with an arc protractor.
in my experience,which i agree is only this cartridge,i had much more trouble with the 2m black.
the decca to be honest has been one of the easiest to set up.

ive not had any mistracking issues so far.

[magiccarpetride]

i found my c4e a doddle to set up,the tip looks in line with the cartridge body which is your only point of reference for alignment,that was a concern,the actual stylus tip is clearly visible for aligning with an arc protractor.
in my experience,which i agree is only this cartridge,i had much more trouble with the 2m black.
the decca to be honest has been one of the easiest to set up.

ive not had any mistracking issues so far.

That's great to hear. I never had a chance to install Decca on my turntable, but I've been hearing stories about people having difficulty setting it. There also seems to be certain controversy surrounding the appropriate vertical tracking force of that cartridge. What force did you set?

[2kings]

I don't have any problems with all my SC4Es.
I find them easy to align with a proper protractor.

[karma67]

That's great to hear. I never had a chance to install Decca on my turntable, but I've been hearing stories about people having difficulty setting it. There also seems to be certain controversy surrounding the appropriate vertical tracking force of that cartridge. What force did you set?

i set mine to 1.8 as john wright advised.

[Barry]

"Cantilever haze" was a term devised by the engineers at Decca to describe information transmission loss due to a less than perfectly rigid cantilever. Long before the use of stiffer materials such as boron, ruby or diamond, the only practical available material to use for the cantilever was aluminium.

But Decca's engineers came up with the novel idea of using a very short cantilever (and came up with the marketing phrase "Direct scanning" to describe their idea). However Deccas are moving iron designs (sometimes called variable reluctance), so the cantilever has to be made of a permeable material, and with the 'cantilever' being clamped a short distance from the stylus means the compliance will be low. It does have the advantage that the pivot point is better defined than if a compliant rubber material was used.

Originally the Decca cartridges were monophonic, and the compliance in the lateral plane was high at least 20cu). With the advent of stereo, Decca had to find a way of sensing motion in the vertical plane, so they added two vertical magnet and coil assemblies and arranged the 45 degree Left and Right signals to be derived as a sum and difference combination of the vertical and lateral signals. Unfortunately the motion of cantilever in the vertical plane is more resticted because the clamping of the cantilever favours movement in the lateral plane, so the compliance in the vertical plane is very low (~ 5cu).

I would imaging the patents have now expired (I think in the UK patents can only run for a maximum of 21 years), so other cartridge designers could use Decca's ideas. In fact a few years ago, I believe Krell (or maybe it was Madrigal) developed a moving coil cartridge using the 'cantileverless' ideas of Decca. For reasons unknown it didn't go into production. Maybe it was too difficult to build for an acceptable price.

Since the demise of Decca Special Products the licence to build 'Decca' cartridges has be bought by John Wright who continues manufacture under the 'London' label, and the new cartridges are built to a much better and reliable standard and use a four pin connection system.

[Jimbo]

i found my c4e a doddle to set up,the tip looks in line with the cartridge body which is your only point of reference for alignment,that was a concern,the actual stylus tip is clearly visible for aligning with an arc protractor.
in my experience,which i agree is only this cartridge,i had much more trouble with the 2m black.
the decca to be honest has been one of the easiest to set up.

ive not had any mistracking issues so far.

I agree, the Decca is far easier to set up than the 2M.

[magiccarpetride]

"Cantilever haze" was a term devised by the engineers at Decca to describe information transmission loss due to a less than perfectly rigid cantilever. Long before the use of stiffer materials such as boron, ruby or diamond, the only practical available material to use for the cantilever was aluminium.

But Decca's engineers came up with the novel idea of using a very short cantilever (and came up with the marketing phrase "Direct scanning" to describe their idea). However Deccas are moving iron designs (sometimes called variable reluctance), so the cantilever has to be made of a permeable material, and with the 'cantilever' being clamped a short distance from the stylus means the compliance will be low. It does have the advantage that the pivot point is better defined than if a compliant rubber material was used.

Originally the Decca cartridges were monophonic, and the compliance in the lateral plane was high at least 20cu). With the advent of stereo, Decca had to find a way of sensing motion in the vertical plane, so they added two vertical magnet and coil assemblies and arranged the 45 degree Left and Right signals to be derived as a sum and difference combination of the vertical and lateral signals. Unfortunately the motion of cantilever in the vertical plane is more resticted because the clamping of the cantilever favours movement in the lateral plane, so the compliance in the vertical plane is very low (~ 5cu).

I would imaging the patents have now expired (I think in the UK patents can only run for a maximum of 21 years), so other cartridge designers could use Decca's ideas. In fact a few years ago, I believe Krell (or maybe it was Madrigal) developed a moving coil cartridge using the 'cantileverless' ideas of Decca. For reasons unknown it didn't go into production. Maybe it was too difficult to build for an acceptable price.

Since the demise of Decca Special Products the licence to build 'Decca' cartridges has be bought by John Wright who continues manufacture under the 'London' label, and the new cartridges are built to a much better and reliable standard and use a four pin connection system.

I was under the impression that the main factor contributing to the 'cantilever haze' was not the rigidity of the cantilever itself, but the unavoidable damping that occurs when the rubber meets the cantilever at the 'entrance' to the body of the cartridge. That touchpoint was something that Decca managed to avoid with their design, thus enabling the kinetic signal generated by the stylus to be transferred to the coils/magnets without interference by intermediary components.

Obviously, anyone who's had a chance to listen to this cartridge set properly on a quality system can attest to the extraordinary clarity it can deliver.

[walpurgis]

I've had quite a few Deccas and never experienced any problems due to quality control. Nor have I found the cartridges difficult to set up.

They do give a perception of 'speed' of response to the sound, which is seldom replicated by other cartridges, although I will say the ZYX R100 H 02 moving coil item seems to manage this effect rather well.

[karma67]

I agree, the Decca is far easier to set up than the 2M.

I kept thinking this is too easy, I must be doing something wrong! Lol

[walpurgis]

i set mine to 1.8 as john wright advised.

How's it going with the Decca now you've had time to 'acclimatise' Jamie?

[Jimbo]

Everyone should listen to a well set up Decca cartridge, it is an education of what can be achieved with a cartridge, not all good I hasten to say, but when they hit the spot they are the most exciting cartridge on the planet and can make your jaw drop.

[Barry]

I don't have any problems with all my SC4Es.
I find them easy to align with a proper protractor.

Agreed - I have never had any problems with any of the Deccas I have (Mk. III, Mk. IV (SC4E), Mk. V and Mk. VI). In principle Deccas are no more difficult to set up than any other cartridge, but the installation can't be rushed - just as time and care should be taken with the setting up of any cartridge.

Where Deccas can be fussy is what to do with the 'fourth' wire, and with the choice of phonostage (which needs to have adequate overload headroom). Owing to the enormous sample-to-sample variation, due to sloppy workmanship and quality control, in order to obtain a decent performance some Deccas need to be pampered more than others. And reliability used to be pretty variable as well, because of poor quality control. This was recognised by Decca in the Mk. IV series with the better samples being selected and given an 'S' prefix (as in SH4E, and SC4E). This practice continued with the Mk. V series with the better samples being designated 'Grey' (or 'Export'), or the 'Maroon', the latter of which were built on a separate production line with more care and attention taken with assembly.

Light tonearm damping can be helpful, but is not IMO essential.

[montesquieu]

Ikeda made a cartridge with effectively no cantilever before reverting to more traditional designs (as in short cantilever rather than none), and the relatively (or at least, comparatively) mass market Dynavector 17D similarly had a only tiny cantilever similarly sized to the one in the Decca, I'm sure there are others. So it's not as if no-one else has had a go.

The Decca's mix of compliance has always worried me and I suspect it's the reason why it's so fussy about arms and damping.

Beyond that the idea of widespread 'cantilever haze' smells of marketing bollocks to me - as in everything the heart of the matter is the execution, and there are some cracking long cantilevered cartridges around. If haze was a proper thing then every Lyra should sound rubbish - which (even if they aren't your taste, and the are no longer mine) they don't!

[Jimbo]

I kept thinking this is too easy, I must be doing something wrong! Lol

:lol: Much of the negative stuff written about Decca's is a myth. The truth is they can sound absolutely wonderful and are no more difficult to set up than any other cartridge. They certainly give you insights into recordings I have not heard from any other cartridge.

The only reason I don't have mine set up permanently is they can be too much of a good thing and I don't want to wear mine out!:lol:

[YNWaN]

I’ve never heard the term ‘cantilever haze’ and the Decca carts do have a cantilever - just a very upright one.

[montesquieu]

:lol: Much of the negative stuff written about Decca's is a myth. The truth is they can sound absolutely wonderful and are no more difficult to set up than any other cartridge. They certainly give you insights into recordings I have not heard from any other cartridge.

The only reason I don't have mine set up permanently is they can be too much of a good thing and I don't want to wear mine out!:lol:

Not everyone has such a positive story to tell. I've tried a couple of times now and given up both times trying to get a sound I could live with. That's not a myth that's fact. And I think I do know a thing or two about cartridge setup.

[Barry]

I was under the impression that the main factor contributing to the 'cantilever haze' was not the rigidity of the cantilever itself, but the unavoidable damping that occurs when the rubber meets the cantilever at the 'entrance' to the body of the cartridge. That touchpoint was something that Decca managed to avoid with their design, thus enabling the kinetic signal generated by the stylus to be transferred to the coils/magnets without interference by intermediary components.

Obviously, anyone who's had a chance to listen to this cartridge set properly on a quality system can attest to the extraordinary clarity it can deliver.

Yes the 'hinge', fulcrum or pivot point is much better defined, but the reduction of "cantilever haze" is due to the movement of the stylus being sensed as close to the stylus as possible, hence the use of a very short cantilever. This method was called "direct scanning" by Decca. The albeit short cantilever of the design is actually damped close to the pivot point.

[karma67]

How's it going with the Decca now you've had time to 'acclimatise' Jamie?

Still over the moon! It has improved since I first put it on. Bloody lovely :)

[Barry]

Not everyone has such a positive story to tell. I've tried a couple of times now and given up both times trying to get a sound I could live with. That's not a myth that's fact. And I think I do know a thing or two about cartridge setup.

Agreed. Much of the negative impressions reported by users is due to the sloppy workmanship and quality control exercised by Decca at the time. I have had three samples of the Decca 'Blue': one is fantastic (and kept), the second adequate (also kept), the third was poor (and is long gone).

[magiccarpetride]

Yes the 'hinge', fulcrum or pivot point is much better defined, but the reduction of "cantilever haze" is due to the movement of the stylus being sensed as close to the stylus as possible, hence the use of a very short cantilever. This method was called "direct scanning" by Decca. The albeit short cantilever of the design is actually damped close to the pivot point.

Does Decca also have a break-in time?

[helma]

There's also been some MC cartridges mounting the coils directly above the stylus, like the new Audio-Technica ART-1000. It's not a first, I think there was a similar older design from the 80s, but can't remember who made it. In that type there's a rather traditional cantilever, but stylus movement is "sensed" right at the tip instead of at the other end of the cantilever.

https://eu.audio-technica.com/AT-ART1000

[Barry]

I think a prototype MC cartridge using similar ideas was made for Roland Research, but never went into production.

Would love to hear the Audio Technika ART-1000, but at £4,500 that's not going to be anytime soon! :(