Ludwig Streicher, H.P. Lovecraft, Decca SC4E, Schick arm and Bosoeum Acoustics "Big Nose" headshell

Decca!!!

Decca SC4E is among the most well kept secrets in audio... I must thanks a lot - I mean A LOT - a gentleman and a fellow Blogger and audio and music enthusiast, River Yu from Taipei... his hintings were precious as gold and he proved soooo right... this old Decca cartridge sounds like Music.

I mounted on the "Big Nose" exotic and seldom seen headshell using Yamamoto BT-1 titanium screws, pretty right and long enough for the Decca's and aligned and tuned on Schick's arm at 1,75 grams... the VERY lower weight limit - according Thomas Schick himself - for this awesome, so pure and transparent 12" arm.

The sound of the Decca is IMPRESSIVE... for the very first time I REALLY listened to the Thomas Mayer's LCR phono-stage... no MC trannies at all on signal path... only the truest spirit and soul of Western Electric 437A!

Decca's not an MC or MM: it's a Decca:-)...  it's very, VERY far from being a forgiving moving magnet or a fussy, razor-like MC... it's superbly transparent and sweet, tracks blissfully at 1,75 grams also the most tremendous tracks... on beloved Ludwig Streicher's Bottesini on Telefunken, on a piece,  "Grande Allegro di Concerto per Il Contrabbasso e il pianoforte" the left hand of maestro Streicher is so sublimely audible up and down the fretboard and looong neck in all the skill and art needed to master such a tour-de-force for double-bass... listening to this very pieces it reminds me an H.P. Lovecraft's short story, "The Music of Erich Zann", where a violin player plays in the night incredibly weird melodies, weirdest and weirdest as time goes by... obscure misteries... the Evil... Devils' possession... you know...

The above drawing also declined - by chance - the (original) violin into a double-bass!

Maestro Streicher was... is THE greatest double bassist of ALL the times and far from the above, yet his playing truly is "possessed" by the spirit of Bottesini, the greatest of all composers for double-bass... he's so strong, moving and unique to make the most difficult playing soooo easy to the ear... and the above mentioned gears aren't gears, anymore, as they allow such a nearness and integration with this sublime music.