Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Dear Chris, I'm on vacations and I can only use my mobile to respond.
So :
I agree with what Dover said.
We have to accept this fact but we must also note and realize that :
For an overhang of 17mm at the full side of an LP (22min=1320sec=733rotations) the displacement per rotation is 0.0232mm.
This particular kind of progressive speed break that takes place, it is just impossible to perceived by our senses as speed variation or pitch instability, but of course we can clearly witness a unique phenomenon of a flowing without friction that results only from the allways perfect tangential TRACE and this is the part of interest, not the effect of the perfect SPEED.
Now, to be able to take any advantage of this quality, one has to take care a number of concerns that perhaps this thread brings over, (I'm sorry it is impossible to read the whole thread on my ancient mobile phone) but one of the most curious that I've witness is the cartridge great VTF, great actual physical weight and relatively low catilever's compliance. I don't know if your experiments with MM carts brings forth any issues reg. all of the above, but my own living with Piere Lurnee SL5 & Goldmund T4 with MC's was reflecting this preference. I know these were 2 bad examples of Tangential arms but this is my limited experience and this is also the reason that I abandoned the Parallel tracking chapter. I've allways had lusting over an Air Tangent but the cost of purchase was 13000 euro five years back and lefts me wanting. I'm sorry but I can't be of any help here and somehow I feel that I'm embarrassing your findings with my own contradictions. It is just a different path that I take here, (as with my speakers, my DHT line pre & SET/OTL power amps) and although not clearly a preferance for pivoted over tangential, my favorite cartridges direct me this path .

About the alignment post on Pivoted arms:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1343550512&openfrom&21&4#21
Take care

Dear Chris,
I'm tempted to express a point of view οn this matter with the danger of an oversimplified misunderstanding by your side.

Theoretically,
I can imagine a great DD matched with a great air bearing arm, offering a great effortless precision. But this in an ideal state of mind in which every part of this set-up has designed with some proven research behind it and executed with utmost care in shape, materials in use and precision in assembly and overall construction.

I admit, I've met a critical point of my taste by using the hybrid TD124 with the SAEC WE-308SX and the Zonotone headshell. Two of the most complex designs in conjunction with my Colibri XPP gave me a vivid and lifelike presence, airy and energetic with an organic fullness which can't be found on my other top TT/tonearms. Perhaps a JN's creation of L75/Pluto 9A has all these qualities and more, but until now, the L75 with Reed 3Q or Technics EPA 100mk2 and my Symphonic Line RG6/Pluto 9A was nowhere near it's class.
A series of unfortunate events regarding my decision for turn my back to Tangential arms, includes a vivid memory of an audition of the Clearaudio Statement TT/arm/Goldfinger and a side by side comparison with the Clearaudio Master Reference/Pluto 5A/Goldfinger. It was clear for me my preference for the later as the achromatic character of the first left me uninvolving, unmoving my senses, looking for emotional charging. Τhis was a mechanical tangential arm (not an electronic but neither air bearing) without an armtube, but as straight forward as can be. I know this is a cheap excuse, but I'm very familiar with your previous TNT/ET2 set-up. When I've had the opportunity to buy this combo, I've bought the J4/SL5 instead. I wish that you didn't push me deeper to this. When I've had my DP80/SME V, a friend gave me his own DP80/Clearaudio TQ1 and this was a disaster. One of the most sterile, uncomfortable but also unstable performances when paired with my VDH Black Beauty, Grasshopper IIIM and Symphonic Line RG8 gold. But it was almost very listenable with my Insider. Yes, the ET2 never was set on my armboard, perhaps due to the fact that my DP80/SME V was allways prefered by our group when played beside the TNT/ET2. Probably because of a faulty air pressure or wrong alignment, or even because the DP80 is a hell of a TT while the TNT was a lousy plastic sucker. It is not that I don't have any experience with the tangential tracking arm, it is more that this poor ET2 was deeply buried by the great TNT of the time.
You should know better by now, but as I wanted to move into the parallel tracking arms, I've bought the J4/SL5 and after that, the Goldmund ST4 and even the Studio/T3F later.
Plastic armtubes running in parallel with the aluminium armtube, servos, elastic belts, waiting for the arm to make the mistracking in order to serve their correction, moving the whole construction to the next groove. OK let's get over these early monstrous electromechanical tonearms.

Practically,
As I'm approaching the air bearing clan of suspects, I can not see a clear view of what is possible or what is widely accepted regarding the armtube shape, material or lateral weight. The Kuzma, Simon Yorke, Air Tangent, ET 2.5, Conductor, Decca, Sindre, Terminator all have their own perception of air bearing mechanism and all things about everything. Where is the conical and progressively ascending tube inside a tube made of titanium ? Or the azimuth leveling on headshell ? While I can give my time on experimenting with the air pressure or mounting conditions, I'm not convinced for the maturity of what the industry has to offer on this subject as yet and the clinical environmental conditions of handling them regarding dust or smoking is another disturbing thing to consider.
Again my apologies for my ignorance, but I'm not a pivoted devotee only by coincidence, but more so by need.