Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

"See - in most every high-end device there are 2 or 3 custom-built/designed and extremely expensive parts that are built by a division of the NASA or at least by a very special secret JAN-company which usually would never manufacture them due to cost reasons."

Don't forget the magic pixie dust.

Interesting stuff Dertonarm. Even though they have very solid reputations, the Kuzma arms are obviously way down the "quality audio" scale. Their Stogi arm utilizes ABEC 5 bearings while the Stogi Reference has ABEC 7. This then is likely just above the quality of playground marbles. 8^)

So let me correct my initial comment on the Triplanar's bearings:
it ( the Triplanar ) has of course the one and only best ball-bearings and the bearings used in it are several grades above the best used in any other device on this planet - money no object.
I hope my humble apologies for not getting this right in the first.
Dertonarm (Threads | Answers)

:^))).

See - in most every high-end device there are 2 or 3 custom-built/designed and extremely expensive parts that are built by a division of the NASA or at least by a very special secret JAN-company which usually would never manufacture them due to cost reasons.
But as high-end manufacturers would never spare any $ if they can spend it for the better of their customers and the equipment they do grace this world with - they go for this special part.
So much for marketing.
Raul and I are both a bit into tonearm design and as a side-effect into ball-bearings.
In Germany there are a few nice companies in the area of Schweinfurt/Bavaria - not too far away from me.
Ever heard of SKF Kugelfischer, Fichtel & Sachs ?
If you drive a high-performance car (Porsche, Audi, Maybach, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes to name but a few...) you will find them in the critical areas.
This was the heart of precision ball-bearing manufacturing in Germany even 100 years back (and a prime target on the bomb list of the allies during WW 2 - for good reason).
It still is now. Their best miniature sealed ball-bearings (I mean: the very best the german ball-bearing industry has to offer to the public - precision grade AEBC 11) will set you back about US$70-90 each if you buy them in very small quantities. With 100+ the price drops fast and to about 60%.
But of course - these are no match for custom grade ball-bearings for audio applications.
So let me correct my initial comment on the Triplanar's bearings:
it ( the Triplanar ) has of course the one and only best ball-bearings and the bearings used in it are several grades above the best used in any other device on this planet - money no object.
I hope my humble apologies for not getting this right in the first.

Mepearson, not to muddy the waters too much but I spotted a comment from Dertonarm that needs correction: the bearings in the Triplanar as good as you can find. They are custom-built by an aerospace bearing supplier, and are 3 or 4 grades higher in hardness and polish than the bearings found in the SME 5. There is only one manufacturer in the US than can make the bearing and they are the most expensive part of the arm as I understand it.

In terms of trackability and distortions, not neccesary.
In terms of sonic performance, not neccesary.

I am inclined to think an air-bearing linear arm could sound better than a DC-servo one. There are some good designs during the past few years.

Dan

Livemusic, Good point about lateral mass. I have lately started using a Dynavector tonearm, which is deliberately designed to present a high mass in the horizontal plane. I can only say it is a great sounding tonearm with lovely bass response. However, I think the possible negative effect of high mass in the horizontal plane is ameliorated (at least) by the pivoted design of the Dyna tonearms.

Well, after starting this thread and reading everything everyone has written, I have decided to give pivoted arms another shot. After numerous emails with Dertonarm, I have decided to buy a Fidelity Research FR64s tonearm. I know Raul thinks the AT is superior, but based on its low resale value, I decided against it. If for some reason I decide I don't like the FR, I am confident I can get my money back. I am looking forward to all of the parts coming in (I bought the arm, a new TNT armboard from VPI, and a NOS Orsonics headshell). It is my hope that this combo will sound better than my ET-2 in all parameters. If it does, I will gladly sell the ET-2 and be done with linear tracking arms once and for all. Since the arm is coming from Australia, the headshell from Hong Kong, and the armboard from VPI, it will be awhile before everything arrives. It should be interesting and I hope worthwhile. There must be a reason why the FR64s has a cult following and the value continues to climb.

Excentric records kill all theoretical advantages of passive linear trackers. Doing simple math, you can see a side force as large as up to 1.0 gramm peak applied to the cantilever when say, 200 gramm of slider+arm mass is driven by 1 mm out-of-center record. Cantilever ealisy moves more than 1 degree from centerline under such force. In perfect world of ideal records, when the arm moves accross the record with virtually no acceleration, high lateral mass is a good thing, allowing needle to follow groves while the arm stays steady due to high inertia. From my personal experience with 120 g air tracker, 1-1.5 mm eccentricity is pretty audible, not to mention lead-out groove, where cantilever bouncing becomes scary.

Remembers me to the day from my good old times when I was asked after listening to the Goldmund Reference with the T3F Arm which Cartridge I would mount in that Arm? Goldfinger, UNIverse, Olympos or even something more expensive????
My answer was "Go for the cheapest one or to that one you hate most".
I saw the movements from that Arm and the smeared soundstage was one of the results.
But honestly, I guess, that was not the answer the other one wanted to hear :-)

Dear Pryso - as a more direct answer to your question 02-22-10 directed to me - the "stress" on the cantilever mounted in a pivot tonearm (if we leave skating-force aside for a moment and address the force vector only, which promotes the movement of the tonearm.. ) is very different from the one applied by guiding a linear tracker.
The derivation force in the linear tracker adds a force to the stylus which is about 90 degrees off - i.e. in the linear line - towards the "normal" (read: in pivot tonearm) force which does (normally...) point towards the pivot point of the tonearm.
The cartridge and its cantilever ( every cartridge - even DECCA/London and IKEDA with their "string" holding the "vertical" cantilever or arc in position) are designed to address that ("normal") force only and thats why that "linear derivation force" in a linear tracker puts indeed - no matter how careful set-up, leveled etc. - an additional stress on the cantilever/suspension system.
And it does so in a way the cartridge was not designed for to withstand for long.
A short sketch on white paper will immediately illustrate the forces and the dilemma.

In general ( terrible term in itself.... ) the horizontal moving mass of all tangential ( linear ) tonearms is much higher than with any pivot tonearm.
The armpipe of the linear tonearm first needs to be deviated from the zero error line to move. then the whole assembly with the bearing/housing moves. It does so by the lever of the armpipe ( reason for short pipes with Versa Dynamics and Souther - but they have other problems, due to this super short armpipe). All this force - the force needed to move the whole tonearm - is applied at the stylus/cantilever/suspension of the cartridge.
The passive linear tracking tonearm needs kind of negative feedback loop to move forward.
The lever only acts when there is an error first.
I think anyone can illustrate the situation in a minute on a sheet of paper with the force vectors - it really nice clarifies the point.
The movement of the linear tonearm is a chain of error-correction-error-correction. The force takes action at the stylus first and declines the cantilever - then the armpipe follows with the bearing/housing behind.
Not a healthy situation for any cartridge.
I love the principle of linear tracking due to its theoretical advantage of zero tracking error. Its just that in the experience working with the various designs offered to the audiophile in the past 4 decades since the Rabco saw the light of day, none could overcome the inherent mechanical problems which ultimately nulls and voids the theoretical advantages in the long term.
A problematic situation for the cartridge (a working situation it was not designed for...). A problematic situation for the energy transfer abilities of the tonearm due to anything, but a tight, rigid bearing ( in real world ).
I would love to see a linear tonearm fulfilling the promises of the theoretical basic concept.
But zero tracking error is not everything in tonearm design.
Once minimized, there are several other aspects which too do have strong influence to the sonic quality of the performance.

I have used the airbearing arm on three maplenoll tables and have never had a cantilever issue as has been reported in this thread concerning air bearing arms. My experience with the maplenoll is only 5 years but i have been very impressed with the performance. as for hours of use, I spin anywhere from 5 to 15 albums a week so i have racked up quite a few hours on these arms. As i have stated before, i have never owned one of the premier pivot arms so my comparison of the linear arm is to either stock arms on dual and denon tables or a rega rb300 on a gyrodec. But the ability to track tough passages has never been an issue with the maplenoll arms. As for as tracking warped records, my basic ariadne out performed the gyrodec with a rb300 easily. The apollo table with the vacuum hold system has been spectacular. I have modified the original tonearms to move from Aluminum or brass wands to carbon fiber wand along with replacing the headshell and vta adjustment to include an on the fly zlift vta adjustment on my two earlier ariadne tables. These mods had a significant improvement to the performance which i attributed to the increased stiffness of the assembly. These tonearm assemblies are pretty light mass especially since i use the zyx line of cartridges which are pretty light anyway. Having said this, part of the setup is the level adjustment. When properly adjusted, a very slight pressure will move the assembly with ease. When compared to my rega RB300 on my gyrodec, the movement of the airbearing arm is so much smoother. as for the bearing slop, i do not understand the comment completely so I can not comment on it. Sut the arm is very stable. I do dampen my arm slightly. I do not have the breath of experience on all of the tonearms and tables as compared to some of the other guys so please take my comments accordingly. That being said, i do like the maplenoll arms compared to my previous experience with the rega arm

Lewm, Exactly!

About ten years ago I did initial sketches on a tone arm that used a mechanical track that had zero bearing slop. The are was otherwise conventional in that it used a pivot like a radial tracking arm, and a servo that was light-beam activated. Of course I never built it, instead I handed it off to a tone arm manufacturer, but it seems like its not likely to see the light of day anytime soon if it ever does. But it is a design that solves this problem.

I own an LP cutting lathe, and every time I look at the lead screws and do the setup on the cutterhead itself, I think about doing a linear tracking arm. Right now its more important to run the lathe than make a tone arm...

I think the difference in the stress on a cantilever caused by a straight line arm vs a pivoted arm has to do with inertia, primarily. Lets assume there is zero friction. The cantilever is therefore bearing only the inertia (in the horizontal plane) of either a pivoted arm or a straight line arm. Inertia is related to mass and is the property of a static object to stay static and of a moving object to continue to move in the same direction and at the same speed (in the absence of friction). In the case of a pivoted arm, because it is rotating with respect to the pivot, which does not move at all, the net inertial mass is lower than for an air-bearing straight line arm, where all parts of the arm from front to rear have to be moved equally by the force on the cantilever alone. Many air-bearing arms have very low mass arm wands to compensate for this issue. Then in the real world there also IS a force on the cantilever necessary to overcome friction, to add to the problem. The cantilever has a huge mechanical advantage in overcoming friction at the pivot, but no such mechanical advantage in overcoming friction at the air bearing. Obviously, all these forces are tiny, else the cantilever would not last more than a few mm of travel. I am not about to argue that these things nullify the potential goodness of linear tracking.

Sometimes an LP is rare enough that you put up with what you are able to find. All LPs have some warp. When speed variations are introduced, its likely that when they are subtle you are more likely to hear them as a wavering in the soundstage.

I had a Cosmos for a long time- it is nice to have the records be really flat.

Atmosphere
"Short arm tubes such as seen in the Souther have two issues. The first is that the arm bearings cannot be in the plane of the LP so tracking pressure will change as warps and bass frequencies are negotiated. The second is that warps will cause wow."

My SOTA has vacuum disc clamping. Severely warped records will not suck down anyway, besides who plays warped records on a decent set up? So how much warp matters anyway? In the same vane, what sort of bass tracking are we talking about?
Wow is at a certain frequency range, or put another way, if I can't hear it, is it there?
regards,
Sam

Lewm, I built a servo for the Rabco (which uses contacts, not relays) so the contact had only to get below 1 Megohm and the motor would run. Then I put a large capacitor across the motor so it would ramp up slowly and turn off slowly. The result was that the motor was always on, and would set its speed according to the rate that the LP grooves dictated. This eliminated 95% of the hassle of that arm- it was reliable and quite precise as far as linear tracking was concerned.

Later I had an ET but after eating a few cantilevers, I ditched it. Obviously I had the wrong cartridges in it; you could sit can watch the cantilever move back and forth as the arm tried to negotiate the LP. If you have ever seen the arm 'wobble' you know what I am talking about.

There are cantilevers that are stiff enough so this effect is reduced. What is not known (IOW I have seen no measurements to this effect anywhere) is how much the cantilever actually moves to make the arm move. IOW if the cantilever flexes by only a few degrees (which will not be visible to the naked eye) than any advantage of straight tracking is lost to radial tracking where this does not occur (of course this phenomena could occur with a radial tracker too, but most cartridge designers are expecting a certain effective mass in the arm and so this should not be a problem).

Short arm tubes such as seen in the Souther have two issues. The first is that the arm bearings cannot be in the plane of the LP so tracking pressure will change as warps and bass frequencies are negotiated. The second is that warps will cause wow.

BTW to be clear about something: its impossible to have an air bearing that has no slop. If there was no slop, there would be no place for the air to be in the bearing. With precision machining and tight tolerances, the arm can be poised on its cushion of air, and not move too much- until it is disturbed by the motion of the cartridge. The fact is that the arm has to move back and forth and yet stay exactly on its locus. If it moves even slightly out of locus that will be interpreted by the cartridge as a coloration. Its a bit of a trick.

I'm pretty sure that everyone agrees that air pressure and holding tanks to promote stable pressure are important to the sound of the arm. If that is **not** the case, then I would agree that air bearings work... Right now I have a Triplanar, and I've had several pivoted arms before that, not because I think anyone of them are the state of the art, but because what I think is required in a straight tracker does not exist. I regard radial tracking arms as a temporary solution.

Is there even a way to measure this lateral force/stress on the cantilever/motor assembly?

it would seem to be simple to place some sort of sensor between the linear arm housing (or the cartridge body) and press against it. the smallest force required to get the arm moving from rest would be the maximum amount of force required. it might be impossible to measure the force required on a pivoted arm since the arm is able to flex in multiple planes. how could you isolate the resistance in one plane?

since i removed the dampening fluid from my arm the lateral resistance of the arm has got to be negligable.

it's the stress of that initial starting force on the canteliver which potentially could cause premature cartridge failure. my experience is that a linear tracker with vaccuum is the least stressful environment for a cartridge since the record is always flat. my favorite Colibri (a fragile cartridge if ever there was one) lasted 5 years on the Rockport before i accidently broke the canteliver while dusting two years ago.

my linear tracking arm only has two issues; and that is to make sure that the lateral shaft that the arm housing slides on is perfectly level, and that the shaft is clean. cleaning is simply a matter of sliding the arm back and forth once prior to using. i check the level by tapping on the arm to unweight it at various places along the shaft to make sure it stays in place. if it drifts to one side i adjust the plinth leveling on the air suspension. it needs adjustment once or twice a year and takes 30 seconds.

Anyone know someone who has a Fidelity Research FR 64s for sale?

02-22-10: Larryi

However, the pivot and fulcrum mechanical advantage means much less force is needed to move the arm around the pivot point as compared to dragging a very heavy (in the horizontal plain) linear tracking arm. Again, this is just the THEORY; whether this actually translates into a meaningful issue is another matter.

Exactly, I wonder if this is really significantly so in the real world?

Is there even a way to measure this lateral force/stress on the cantilever/motor assembly?

Pryso,

With a pivoted arm, the cantilever IS stressed, to some extent, in pulling the arm into the new position as the needle moves toward the center of the record. However, the pivot and fulcrum mechanical advantage means much less force is needed to move the arm around the pivot point as compared to dragging a very heavy (in the horizontal plain) linear tracking arm. Again, this is just the THEORY; whether this actually translates into a meaningful issue is another matter.

Derton, regarding your 2/20 post detailing your experience with various arms, one point is not clear to me. As I read it, one of your main concerns relates to ". . . stress on the cantilever/suspension system of the cartridge mounted. And it does so by design." with linear arms.

Well and good, but since groove spacing varies over the side of a record, automated arm movement for playback is out of the question. Thus even a pivoted arm moves as the stylus "leads" the cartridge/arm across the record. Is this not also a stress problem with a pivoted arm? Or is this all a function of the effective mass of the pivoted arm versus that of a linear arm? Therefore not as much of a problem with pivoted arms? Not being an engineer, I'm over my head here.

Dear Mepearson: http://www.vinylengine.com/library/audio-technica/at-1503.shtml

Regards and enjoy the music,
raul.

Darkmoebius, agreed.
BTW - most smaller rooms have much less problems with standing waves in the critical area. One of my friends has a top tier system in a rather small room (15' x 16 x 8 ). His woofers are DSP controlled and this system features absolutely superb, clean, dynamic bass performance right down to 18 hz.
No one believes this when entering the room and it is always jaw-dropping hearing a large orchestra in full swing in this room.
My own room which is more than double the size is much more troubled with standing waves in a much more critical frequency range.
I solved my problems by precisely calculating the standing waves frequency and the position of the dips and peaks.
Then I moved my listening place to a spot where all was pretty flat.
Marvelous.
But moving 2 feet to the left or right ruins the bass response for the listener.
Well - as we can't really argue with physics we have to work with it following it's rules.

Dear Mepearson: Yes it does. You can see it here:

http://www.vinylengine.com/library/audio-technica/at-
1503.shtml

I don't think many " audiophiles "/high end own it
because this tonearm are an almost unknow item for the
" audiophiles ", what a normal audiophile knows is
normal tonearms: Triplanar, Graham, SME, etc, etc.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Raul-Does the AT tonearm have provisions for anti-skating? I couldn't see it on the picture.

Does anyone else have any experience with the AT tonearm?

Dear Mepearson: I don't understand why you follow posting that I think the argument that some people make that linear tracking arms can't reproduce the bottom end are patently wrong. " ++++

no one including me posted that, what some of us posted is that the pivot tonearms are better in that critical frequency range.

Btw, that AT tonearm is one of the best " keep secrets ", I can't see how you can have a better performer at almost any price, higly recommended for any one that could think that your today tonearm is one of the best out there.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

02-21-10: Dertonarm
we can still strive for perfection in audio reproduction even if we will never approach it...Not sitting in an acoustical perfect room should in no way keep one from trying to bring or lure the best possible performance from its equipment.

Absolutely, I agree. I'm just pointing out that accurate reproduction of low frequencies(actually all) is probably pretty rare without proper room dimensions and/or extensive acoustic treatment.

What we perceive to be "clean bass" and what actually is, can be two different things. Sounds like Mepearson has done of a good job of getting his room out of the way of the music.

From personal experience, I had a hell of time trying to tame my old 25'x16'x8'living room(just for music) by speaker positioning alone. I had free will to place everything wherever I wanted in the room(being single and all). And that was with dual subwoofers placed non-symmetrically around the room. I never really won the acoustics battle.

After looking a photos of a lot of professional reviewers rooms, I have to seriously question their ability to discern individual audio component frequency reproduction anomalies from their acoustic environment. And when they talk about the accuracy, or inaccuracy, of low frequency reproduction...Well, the brain is obviously a very powerful machine.

Raul-you are right. The Audio Technica is one humble looking tone arm. Outright fugly in fact.

Well Darkmo, I have a purpose-built dedicated audio room. My room is roughly 16' W x 23' D with 9' ceilings. It does have an L shape towards the back of the room where the width opens up another 5' or so. The front half of my room has extensive room treatments with acoustic panels that each are 2' x 4' by 4" thick. My room does bass. As far as room treatments, my next treatment will be for the front half of the ceiling.

I think the argument that some people make that linear tracking arms can't reproduce the bottom end are patently wrong. We can debate that possibly pivoted arms have better bass (maybe deeper with more punch and slam), but not that linear tracking arms are incapable of reproducing bass. I have pointed out low bass before on LPs to others who couldn't hear it until they inserted a sub into their system because the fundamentals I was describing were lower than their main speakers could go without a subwoofer much to their surprise.

After reading all of the comments posted, I am tempted to try another pivoted arm higher up on the food chain than I previously owned. I will not sell my ET-2 though unless/until I find something that clearly smokes it. I have been down that road one too many times in the past where you buy something that is supposed to be superior to what you own only to find that you made a mistake and you have to go out and buy what you used to own again to get back to the quality of sound that you once had.

Sure, about everyone of us here do envy Mike Lavigne for that room.
However - in an imperfect world (read: the one we all are living in...) we can still strive for perfection in audio reproduction even if we will never approach it.
Not sitting in an acoustical perfect room should in no way keep one from trying to bring or lure the best possible performance from its equipment.
And then there is the ear ........ and the related processor and hard disk creating the experience of hearing.
Imperfect too......

Agreed, Raul. But clean reproduction of the fundamental note and it's harmonics, across the entire frequency range, is a direct function room dimensions and acoustic treatments. I'd guess that most rooms are subject to serious modal ringing and suckouts without such treatment. Multiple subwoofers placed unevenly around the room can help mitigate much of the problems, but ~4 are often necessary.

Offhand, something like reviewer Mike Levigne's room is what would be needed to for truly accurate response.

It would be interesting to see frequency and decay plots of different reviewer's and audiophiles rooms. I think people would be extremely surprised to see what's really going on in their rooms.

Dear darkmoebius: Agree with you. There I'm talking more on bass quality than bass quantity: an important difference.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

02-19-10: Rauliruegas
This alone characteristic where IMHO the pivot tonearms are superior makes a difference: this bass range frequency is the foundation of the music and it is here where tiny differences makes the difference of course if we own a system that can play clean in that bass frequency range.

02-19-10: Mepearson
Well Raul, I own a system that "can play clean in that bass frequency range."

While many of us may have components capable of producing these low frequencies - I'd guess very, very, few have rooms with dimensions and/or extensive acoustic treatments that allow the accurate reproduction of those lower frequencies.

How about the Dynavector DV-507 mkII? How does that, and it's "Bi-Axis Inertia Controlled Dynamic Balance ", rate against the other top pivoted arms?

Dear Mepearson: This " humble " Audio Technica 10" tonearm is a winner and IMHO better than the vintage Technics and Fidelity Research ( that I own. ), it competes with any pivoted tonearm out there. Btw, I'm using it and is a current model:

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgtnrm&1270496166&/Audio-Technica-1503-Mark-III-l

if you want it new you can find it here:

http://www.audiocubes2.com/brand/Audio-Technica/product/Audio-Technica_AT-1503_IIIa_Transcription_Universal_Tone_Arm.html

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Also look into the Basis Vector Arm. A. J. Conti use to distribute a well known linear tracking arm and he feels his arm sounds much better than a linear tracker.

Mark, I would just give the Triplanar, DaVinci, new Ortofon as well as the Phantom II a good listen. These are current production and while not featuring the tightest and most rigid bearings in tonearm history, all four are capable to outperform each and every linear tracker in terms of speed, detail and inner punch in the lower registers. Precisely set-up their maximum derivation from zero tracking error is smaller than 1.6°.
Great contenders from days gone by ( see used market ) - with tighter and more rigid bearings than any of the above current production - are Technics EPA, Micro MAX, SAEC 4xx and most notably (no surprise...) Fidelity Research FR-64s (this has the best energy handling and transfer of any tonearm).
These are all 10" tonearms.

D.

Dertonarm-Thank you for your very well-reasoned response. You obviously have an abundance of experience with linear tracking arms and therefore it's interesting to hear your viewpoint.

I have heard pros and cons for 12" arms with the cons mainly added resonance as a trade off for the lower distortion. What 10" arms do you recommend?

Mark

I have owned Air Tangent 2B, 10B and Reference, ET 2.5 mod. and Goldmund T3F. Furthermore i have intimate experinece with the Kuzma Airline, Forsell and the Versa Dynamics.
While I would never dare to dispute their theoretical advantage of zero tracking error, all these linear tracking tonearms have/had a few shortcomings which ultimately put them off my tt's.
First of all, I yet have to find a linear tracking tonearm which does not put stress on the cantilever/suspension system of the cartridge mounted.
And it does so by design.

No matter whether active progression as with the Goldmund or passive progression as with Air Tangent and other air suspended linear tonearms - the force driving the tonearm in its linear way is applied through an often heavy lever and the force of lever acts right at the cantilevers suspension.
Not good.

I have found that most every linear tonearm shortens the life of the cartridge in use. No matter how careful you adjust all parameters and I am quite fussy with attention to detail in tonearm set-up.....

The theoretical advantage of zero tracking error is undisputed - but the advantage gets quite tiny regarding 10" and especially 12" tonearms.

Last but not least the bearing in air suspended, but also in slide mechanical bearing based tonearms is no match for the tight bearings of conventional pivot tonerams - unipivot, knife-edge or gimball bearings.

All these "old school" - bearings can handle mechanical energy induced into the tonearm by the tracking process much better than any real-world linear tracking bearing applied in tonearm design so far.
Thus they sonically outperform (the best pivot tonearms...) even the best linear trackers in low register weight, punch and brute force - and doing so by quite a good margin.

Yes, - the linear tracking concept in tonearm design has its theoretical advantages, but also its shortcomings inherent in the bearing principles applied so far.
We would either need super high air pressure - which will have some other new shortcomings coming with it... - or very tight (sealed...) linear bearings.
None of this has been brought to the market in lt-tonearm design so far.

And finally we would need to address that problem right at the tip of the cartridge' stylus....

Linear tracking tonearm design is a fine example of great promise in concept but many shortcomings in practice....

Dear Mepearson: +++++ " linear arm is incapable of reaching into the bottom octave. " +++++

I never posted that, please re-read my post. Btw, I already heard the Rockport too.

+++++ " It's kind of odd to have people tell us that we can't have what we know we hear! " +++++

like in almost every place on audio: there are different range level for quality performance, I know very well Definitive Technology and for what is surrounded it: that's not the quality level performance I'm talking about.

I don't like to continue with what you posted because this is leaving me ( push me. ) to analyze more in deep what you are hearing and I don't want to do it, at least not in your thread.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Well Raul, I own a system that "can play clean in that bass frequency range." My speakers are the Definitive Technology 7000SC which are rated down to 11 Hz. They have a 14" sub in each speaker (with two 14" passive radiators in each speaker)with a built in 1800 watt amp. They certainly plumb the bottom octave cleanly. Mid bass should never be mistaken for the bottom octave (20-40 Hz). Mid bass will not shake your room. I was told that when I switched from the JMW 10 to the ET-2 that I would be giving up bass response. I found the opposite to be true.

I hope that MikeL chimes in here and states whether or not he thinks his linear arm is incapable of reaching into the bottom octave. It's kind of odd to have people tell us that we can't have what we know we hear!

Dear friends: IMHO trying to achieve a precise conclusion of which type of tonearm is better with out take in count how that tonearm is " surrounded " in the analog chain and in especial with which cartridge(s) is almost useless.

The theory behind that a linear tracking/tangential tonearm is better than a pivoted one is IMHO only that: theory, nothing more. A theory can be usefull when we are talking on perfect " stages " but the analog recording process along the reproduction process through our analog rigs are far away from be perfect.

There are cartridges that could perform better in a linear tonearm than in a pivoted one as there are cartridges that performs better in a pivoted one than in a tangential one.

Could this means that either tonearm design is better than the other?, certainly not only tell us that that cartridges performs better in that tonearm because that tonearm makes a better cartridge matching than the other tonearm design.

Now, through my own experiences ( in my system. ) and through experiences ( many ) in other audio systems I never heard/find any single linear tracking tonearm set up where the low bass ( not low mid bass. ) had/has the tightness , fullness, definition and truest that have in a good pivoted one. Btw, I always think that the mechanical " grounded " on a pivot design is very important part for its performance in this frequency range.
This alone characteristic where IMHO the pivot tonearms are superior makes a difference: this bass range frequency is the foundation of the music and it is here where tiny differences makes the difference of course if we own a system that can play clean in that bass frequency range.

The process/mechanism/relationship to reproduce LP's is really complex and to take a sole characteristic in a stand alone link ( the tonearm ) is IMHO a very simple and " un-true " way to seriously analize the subject.

I respect to all those people that " die for " the linear tracking tonearms but many of them ( Walker, Rockport and the like ) have it because they don't have any other choice with those TT's, the linear tracking tonearm is part of the TT package. It is not possible on that TT's to mount a pivot tonearm and make a true comparison.

Anyway like many other subjects in high end audio always will be different opinions about that one way or the other could help to understand more in deep each one audio subject.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Syntax, I have no idea what you mean when you say linear tracking arms can't reproduce a "Physical Force." You need to explain what that means.

MikeL's comments are always very interesting because Mike owns so much great gear and therefore has lots of experience with listening to top notch gear. For people to outright dismiss linear tracking arms based on some theoretical shortcoming without listening to what they can do is just nonsense.

And Lewm, I understand your position. I have been fortunate to have my own listening rooms that have adjacent space available where I could park my pumps and surge tank out of sight and sound from my listening room. If I had to have the pumps and tank in my listening room, I would probably be using a pivoted arm instead.

Hey 213 Cobra (Phil), I too was a friend and customer of Julius' in his end stage as a manufacturer. Over a period of 5-7 years I bought two amps from him, a stereo unit and then an H3aa. I have a vivid memory of standing in his shop space while he helped me box up the H3aa's, so I could carry them to my car. There were home-made power transformers that had been recently wound and "dipped", hanging on a wire to dry. The place smelled like a freshly tarred road on a hot summer day. He was a very sweet guy, a real "class act". Just a month ago I was visiting a record store that is virtually across 72nd St from his Broadway and 72nd St walk-up "factory". I looked for the door that used to lead up to his 2nd floor space, but could not identify it, because the building has been modified since.

"Make sure you use a surge tank with it and an air filter on the output of the tank that feeds the arm tube. You can build your own surge tank for dirt cheap by going to home depot or Lowes and buying a chunk of PVC pipe and two end caps and two air fittings."

This in a nutshell is why I have never owned an airbearing linear tracking tonearm. I just don't want to be bothered with tubing, tanks, gauges, and pumps, not to mention the noise from said pump. But if I did seek out one, it would not be the ET2. Since I don't have the scratch for a Rockport Sirius or Walker, I would go for the Trans-fi. But in the end I agree with Mike. The whole argument is specious, because "it depends". Or as Syntax said in simplest response to the OP, "no".

Ralph, servo arms have inherent problems too. The Rabco depended upon the arm swinging in a "micro"-arc so as to activate a relay that then switched in a tiny motor that drove the pivot along a rail. Thus in fact the Rabco (and the copycat Goldmund T3) transcribed a series of tiny arcs across the surface of the LP, which may place even more stress on the cantilever than does a well designed air bearing tonearm.

i own both types, the Rockport Sirius III linear tracking arm, a pivoted Triplaner, and a pivoted Reed.

my experience is that optimizing a well designed linear tracker can get world class bass performance.....even compared to top level pivoted arms. the character of the bass might be different on a linear tracker than a pivoted arm. subjectively one might prefer one over another.

in my particular case i did think my pivoted arms had more bass slam than my Rockport linear tracker. then i removed the silicone dampening fluid from the Rockport arm, at which point the bass performance really came alive. the dampening fluid had been slowing down the arm, both in the vertical plane but especially in the lateral plane. without the fluid to 'push against' as it tracked sideways down the air shaft the energy level increased by a large degree.

i have 2 Ortofon A90's, one on my Garrard/Triplaner and one on my Rockport. the bass is rounder on the Triplaner, but it does not have more slam than on the Rockport. the Rockport has more articulation and tonality in the bass, the slam and decay are of different character.....more life like. i've had the A90 on the Technics/Reed. there it has more slam than the Garrard/Triplaner, maybe a touch more than the Rockport, but not alot more.

if i were to draw my conclusions from my experience with the Rockport arm with the dampening fluid then i'd likely agree about the differences mentioned above on the difference in bass performance......but not now. and......in all other matters of performance the Rockport arm 'laps the field' over the pivoted arms......but of course, it's not possible to isolate what it does from the tt it resides on.

all air bearing linear tracking arms are not the same; and unless one spends considerable time with any particular arm you cannot assume things.

Atmasphere wrote a very good - and true - comment. That's the way it is.
When you compare those Arms on a table which can hold several Arms and you use a demanding music with a lot of dynamic swings - like the old Deccas, no reissues - you will discover very fast what linear tracking Arms CAN'T do, they are not able to reproduce a Physical Force which is in the recording (has nothing to do with volume).
The silence in the grooves based on that kind of tracking is true, but this is only 1 parameter.
Anyway, it is not necessary to split hairs, today we have pivot Designs which are not outstanding and a linear tracker beat them. The difference is pretty simple, you design a working pivot, the Designer has to think and has to solve some problems, otherwise it won't work properly.
Regular Arms can be hyped much easier, they can be made chap and can be fitted with a generous mark up.
But back to the question:

Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms

the answer is: No

Phil,I would love to hear about Julius Futterman. At one point I had the Harvard Electronics h3a. BOb