Integrityhifi TRU-GLIDER Pendulum Tonearm

Several times I have wrestled with Mijostyn's statement: "A tonearm must be limited to 2 degrees of motion. It must be held rigidly in all others. I will never personally consider an arm that is designed otherwise." I think by this statement, M is meaning to indict unipivot tonearms in favor of gimbal bearing tonearms. But the principle is poorly stated. I gimbal bearing will fix motion at the pivot in two dimensions, up and down and side to side, but at the other end of the lever, those two dimensions are always additive and permit motion of the headshell /cartridge in all directions in the vertical plane, with respect to the center of rest, just as with a unipivot. Indeed that has to be the case, else gimbal bearing tonearms could not track a flawed LP that has a slight warp and is also slightly offcenter.

@lancelock 
Well that's the "problem" lancelock...you have actual experience with  the tonearm! I mean, how can you possibly judge its performance unless you have some sort of engineering experience with no need to hear it?
; -)

I am trying to figure out how some of the claims are justified.  "Weightless"?  "No pivot"?  The arm and headshell MUST have effective mass in order to work with cartridge compliance, and it is clear from visual inspection that they do.  Therefore it is not weightless. There definitely IS a pivot with its center at the attachment of the string; it's just a sloppy one.  That reminds me of at least the early WT tonearms, which also claimed no bearing, when in fact they had a pivot that was just not close tolerance.  And that headshell...  Does it really work without any friction? (If there is any friction in its lateral movement to maintain tangency, then there would be at least a small skating force.)  Anyway, all of that said, I have heard other oddball tonearms that cannot meet the claims of their makers yet sound great.  So I would never say without hearing this one that it cannot sound great.  Lord knows, no orthodox pivoted tonearm is perfect.

Only one Tru-Glider user? C'mon!

Maybe someone else that has the Tru-Glider and can chime in but I’m having excellent results and flawless tracking.

@totem395 , Yes, I did not know they made a shorter version but the short one is going to have ridiculous levels of tracking error and be just as unstable. The long one won't fit on most tables because most do not accept arms that long. Some do and you could certainly build a large plinth. The only suspended, fully isolated turntables I know of that will take an arm that big are the SME 30/12 and 20/12 and the Dohmann Helix (my favorite). I personally do not consider unsuspended tables an option. A turntable must have a suspension that operates below 3 Hz.
A tonearm must be limited to 2 degrees of motion. It must be held rigidly in all others. I will never personally consider an arm that is designed otherwise. Want a great 12" arm get a Reed 2G or Schroder CB. Better yet get a Schroder Lt. IMHO this is the most brilliant tonearm design on the market. Unfortunately it requires a table that will take a 12" arm. My Sota Cosmos will not. So, I am stuck with the Schroder CB a fate worse than death:-)

I liked the fact that there was no modifications needed to install the Tru-Glider. My Technics is pictured on his page. Completely isolated from the plinth.

https://www.integrityhifi.ca/tru-glider

@mijostyn

 It also will not fit on many turntables.

Can you explain further?

I have lived with this tonearm for a few months now and am enjoying it quite a bit. It is superior to the stock arm on my SL1200GAE. I am not an engineer so I can’t speak to what it should do or shouldn’t do on paper but it sounds great. My arm is 12” long and they do have a 10” version.

Yes, I can see that.   The mass of a tonearm has to decrease as the length increases.   Most modern arms and certainly most carbon fiber arms are already low mass, so it becomes difficult for the mass of longer arms to compete. 

It was the floating part that really made me wonder how it held geometry.

Thanks for the comments!   

It is similar to Schroder's design but longer with no offset. It has several serious problems. First is it is very long. Long arms have much more inertia. Records are not perfectly smooth. There are undulations the arm has to follow but with longer heavier arms the cantilever does the following leading to increased levels of distortion. A perfect tonearm will move in only two directions. Up and down, side to side. It should be firmly locked in all other motions. This tonearm is not locked, it is floating and free to move in all directions at least slightly which is enough. 
Now it is trying to trade off the problem of skating for increased tracking error and longer length. IMHO and many others, it is a bad tradeoff
It is an interesting arm but I would never buy it. It violates to many sound principles that are tried and true. It also will not fit on many turntables.