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The Decca vs London Trials

vinyl1

vinyl1

Super Member
In my Living Stereo thread, I spoke briefly about London and Decca pressings, and there seemed to be some interest. Rather than go off topic there, I am posting this new thread.

Many critics, including Michael Fremer, have alleged there is little difference between London and Decca pressings of the same LP. They came off the same line at the same factory, using the same stampers, so why should they be different? People who claim they hear differences must be listening to to different cuttings, which of course will vary.

In order to perform a proper test, therefore, I had to obtain good copies of the same Decca and London LPs with the exact same lacquer. These records are physical descendants of the same hunk of vinyl that was mastered by one of Decca's cutting engineers, and should have very similar characteristics.

The other thing you need, of course, is a high-resolution system and an experienced listening panel. Fortunately, I have access a fine system at some of the equipment-review sessions I attend. On this particular day, Sunday January 31, we used the following equipment:

Kronos Sparta turntable with Helena tonearm
Air Tight PC-1 S cartridge
Allnic H-3000V phono stage
CH Precision L1 line stage and M1 amps
YG Acoustics Anat III speakers
Kubala-Sosna Elation interconnects and power cords
Third Stage speaker cables

The listening panel consisted of me and three other experienced listeners.
 
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For records, I had a matched pair of Decca wideband/London blueback, and a matched pair of Decca narrowband/London. Fortunately, my host was able to match one of the other Londons I had bought, so we started out with the Zubin Mehta version of the Liszt Battle of the Huns:

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This was a 1W pressing of side one, cut by Harry Fisher. We started with about the first five minutes of the Decca, and then played the same passage on the London. We immediately noticed very prominent differences in the musical presentation, so great that they sounded like different recordings. The Decca had a liveliness and a feeling of depth that the London couldn't match. While the London seemed to have more prominent bass in places, it was muddy and indistinct. We switched back to the Decca again to confirm what we had heard. There was not doubt; the air around the strings and the timbre of the woodwinds was much more vivid on the Decca pressing. The London did not by any means sound bad when listened to on its own, but you definitely took a step up when you put on the Decca.

Taking both records to the side for examination, I flexed each LP between the palms of my hand and listened to the sound each made. The Decca was slightly thinner, and seemed softer and more flexible.
 
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Now for the meat of the trial - the wideband vs. blueback match. The records were 2E/2D cuttings of the Krips performance of the Tchaikovsky Symphony #5. One these early pressings, side 1 was cut by Stanley Goodall and side 2 was cut by Jack Law. We confined our listening to the first ten minutes of side 1.

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We played the London first. One member of the listening panel, who had not heard the record before, remarked on the blandness of Krips' performance, calling it a rather un-romantic rendition. The record sounded quite acceptable, as you would expect of a golden-age stereo recording on a system like this. But we were really amazed when we put on the Decca and started the work again. For one thing, the performance was no longer bland. All the little details in tempo and emphasis that had been glossed over on the London were now clearly audible. The transparency of the strings, the separation of the instruments, the clarity of the tone colors was just amazing in comparison to the London.

We took both records and gave them a careful physical examination. The London used much heavier vinyl, and was quite stiff compared to the Decca. which was thin and flexible. Both copies, naturally, had a 'deep groove' in the label, indicating that they came from similar if not identical pressing machines. What was most startling, however, was the actual grooves in the record. The grooves on the Decca were much more distinct and easier to read, and picked up the light in the room much better than the London.
 
Rule 1: Is it a SET? Decca better on convenience. Is it a PFS, Decca up to 1969 better. If not, and mastering engineer and stamper identical and condition identical, usually a tossup. Compare deadwax and let us know your findings. The deadwax suffix tells us who mastered the lacquers.
 
Our final test pair was the Mehta version of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, a 2K/4K pair cut by the great Decca mastering engineer Tony Hawkins.

decca-london-3_zpsfm8bjump.jpg


I wanted to hear some of the organ on this, so suggested the end of side 1. Unfortunately, we did hit the sort of dynamics I was hoping for, but it was still a reasonable test. What actually struck the listening panel the most in this test was the differences in the string sound. The Decca LP just had an incredible transparency and softness compared to its London twin that made the music far more enjoyable. With the London, the instruments were not distinct and the sound was somewhat homogenized; with the Decca the soundstage was huge and deep, and you could hear every instrument in its own space.

That was the conclusion of the Decca portion of our session; we still had a number of 45 RPM jazz reissues we wanted to hear. But no one in the listening panel had any doubt that they had heard genuine and large differences in the three matched pairs of Decca/London LPs we played.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Rule 1: Is it a SET? Decca better on convenience. Is it a PFS, Decca up to 1969 better. If not, and mastering engineer and stamper identical and condition identical, usually a tossup. Compare deadwax and let us know your findings. The deadwax suffix tells us who mastered the lacquers.
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If you read the text I have written, you will find that I have covered these points.
 
Axe Elf said:
My hat is off to anyone who is able to withstand intentional, close listening to classical music for as much as five minutes.

Hopefully your nation will not forget about you when the inevitable symptoms of PTSD begin to develop.

You have all of my respect for your courage.
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It's certainly true that the appreciation of classical music requires an attention span that makes it possible to concentrate on something for longer than 30 seconds, and the capacity to grasp some musical complexity and subtlety. It's also true that the majority of people don't have those abilities and must confine themselves to popular music, where everything is simple, straightforward, rendered with a sledgehammer, and repeated over and over, ad nauseam.
 
johnebravo said:
It's certainly true that the appreciation of classical music requires an attention span that makes it possible to concentrate on something for longer than 30 seconds, and the capacity to grasp some musical complexity and subtlety. It's also true that the majority of people don't have those abilities and must confine themselves to popular music, where everything is simple, straightforward, rendered with a sledgehammer, and repeated over and over, ad nauseam.
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Whatever. You should have just ignored him. Let's keep the mayhem out of these classical and jazz threads.
 
Rock music has its own subtleties, as represented by the guy who posted the Radiohead pressing comparison.

Unfortunately, a system like the one we used for Decca/London comparison has such a high resolution that it ruins most rock. You can hear all the studio tricks laid out before you; it really does sound like guys singing and playing in different locations mixed together on one tape, with a lot of frequency roll-off at both ends and a harsh midrange.

My buddy only likes classical and jazz, so that's all we get to hear on this system anyway.
 
johnebravo said:
It's certainly true that the appreciation of classical music requires an attention span that makes it possible to concentrate on something for longer than 30 seconds, and the capacity to grasp some musical complexity and subtlety. It's also true that the majority of people don't have those abilities and must confine themselves to popular music, where everything is simple, straightforward, rendered with a sledgehammer, and repeated over and over, ad nauseam.
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And that's what makes THIS a classic!

 
To get back to the original topic, let me address another question that nobody has asked, but someone probably should have.

What if you don't have a system that costs more than a new Ferrari? Will you still hear these differences?

In order to address this question, I played the Tchaikovsky records on my high-end-but-humble system, which some might consider expensive but is well within the range of possibility for many audiophiles. I interleaved the movements, alternating between the Decca and the London. I listened rather casually, taking note of passages I found interesting or exciting but not straining to hear every detail.

I would say that the differences were not as pronounced as on the big system, but they were pretty obvious and came through in different ways. For example, I was listening to a loud string passage when suddenly I realized there was a clarinet playing along - gee, I didn't hear that in the London. The dynamics were definitely more powerful on the Decca, and even in the loud passages you could hear the layers of individual instruments distinctly. The London is itself a nice record on its own, but the Decca version definitely takes you up a level.

So for many listeners, the Decca versions are worth seeking out and paying extra for. I am not saying you would hear the difference on every system, but if you are a serious record collector with a reasonable level of playback you might want to consider trying one....if you can get it for a reasonable price. I paid $50 for the Tchaikovsky at a record show, which was a very good price indeed.
 
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Thanks for doing these comparisons. As someone who has a modest classical collection on vinyl, it's nice to have a little knowledge to help narrow down the choices at the used record shop.
 
Kim G said:
Any validity to this, in your opinion? An interesting read that raises some very good questions.

http://www.high-endaudio.com/softw.html
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Mr Salvatore is a famous cultist. He believes what he believes, and he has a sect of rabid followers. However, the bulk of audiophile classical record collectors have an entirely different set of opinions, what might be called the orthodox or consensus view. My views, based on my own personal listening, largely reflect and agree with this consensus. You can ask other famous classical record collectors, and they will say pretty much the same sort of thing that I do.
 
I probably have about 1200 classical LPs, and I don't think I have any Deccas (they were sold only in the UK, right?), but I must have several dozen London ffrr LPs, and I always thought that they sounded pretty good, sometimes surprisingly good for older recordings. If the Deccas are even better, they must sound quite good . . .
 
johnebravo said:
I probably have about 1200 classical LPs, and I don't think I have any Deccas (they were sold only in the UK, right?), but I must have several dozen London ffrr LPs, and I always thought that they sounded pretty good, sometimes surprisingly good for older recordings. If the Deccas are even better, they must sound quite good . . .
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For those that came late, let me give the basic facts.

Decca Records was an English label owned by Sir Edward Lewis. In the 1930s, his company nearly went bankrupt, and he was forced to sell off his US operations. So the American record label named Decca became a completely separate company, and he no longer owned the rights to that name in the US.

Now after WWII, when Decca started to set up a new operation in the US to handle their classical records, they had to call it something else. Thus the London Record Company, USA, came into being as a distribution arm for UK Decca. All the classical records continued to be recorded in Europe, and mastered and pressed at the Decca Records plant in New Malden, Surrey. The records intended for the US market used 'London' labels, and were put in 'London' inner sleeves and shipped to the US. The London Record Company in New York designed and printed jackets, inserted the records into the jackets, and distributed them throughout the US. You can see the different style of jackets in my pictures.

Since the plant at New Malden pressed both the London and Decca records, using the stampers derived from the same lacquers, it would be logical to expect them to sound very similar. However, back in the 70s, audiophile record collectors such as Sid Marks discovered this was not the case, and that in fact the Deccas sound much better. They kept it quiet for a while as they bought up the complete Decca catalog on original pressings, but eventually this information leaked out.

Today, this difference is widely accepted by most collectors. The prices of original Deccas are much higher than Londons from the same errors. There are people who don't agree, but that is the general consensus.
 
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