linear tracking

[guest116]

You don't need servomotors and complex circuitry to drive the arm; you can float it on air. What's more, you can build an air bearing arm yourself and power it with a simple fish tank pump.
I use the Ladegaard-based Terminator T3Pro. Air is supplied by a pump I bought at a local Petco. No fancy gauges or manifolds are necessary, just a smoothing tank that can be built from an empty plastic milk carton. I adjust the air flow using the control valves on the pump, adding just enough air that the arm will play a wildly off-center test record I made. All other adjustments are standard procedure except for anti-skate 'cause their ain't none.
The Terminator is a simple device, probably less complex in design than the typical unipivot offset arm.
I have a spare table with a servo arm--it's a Beogram TX-2--and a Rabco SL-8E for use as a back-up if something should go wrong with the T3Pro, but there's really nothing to break on the Terminator.
The Rabco was the first good LT arm that I had any experience with and within a few hours of using it I knew that I would never go back to a pivoting arm.
I upgraded to the Terminator in January and I honestly don't think I'll ever get another tone arm. The only thing that would make the setup perfect would be two or three spare arm wands so that I could rotate cartridges.

 

[merrylander]

Different mechanism - a pivot arm is almost frictionless on its pivot....

There ARE linear arms that use similar principles - several of the current top of the line arms use this principle. - serious $$ involved and they are fiddly.

The majority of Linear trackers use either mechanical or linear magnetic drives to move the arm - and they work very very well. (Technics, Revox, Goldmund, Rabco, etc...)

I can't speak for other linears but the Yamaha PXs are as frictionless on their pivots as any radial arm. The optical/mechanical system that moves the arm exerts no sideways pressure on the grooves and maintains an error rate of less than 0.1 degree. Any distortion due to that would be inaudible, any more than the distortion caused by a well adjusted radial arm will be audible.

 

[koseltri]

I'd love to have an air-bearing arm, but I'd have to sell every TT I have to get a table then the arm. An audio pack rat can't have 1 of anything.

 

[merrylander]

I'd love to have an air-bearing arm, but I'd have to sell every TT I have to get a table then the arm. An audio pack rat can't have 1 of anything.

Then of course there is the law of diminishing returns which has not been repealed to my knowledge.:scratch2:

 

[perryinva]

Plus they are noisy. Defeats the purpose, IMHO.

 

[guest116]

Plus they are noisy. Defeats the purpose, IMHO.

Noisy? In what way?

 

[vinyl1]

Plus they are noisy. Defeats the purpose, IMHO.

They have very quiet, high-tech air pumps on the $$$$ linear trackers nowadays.

Guys who do have a noisy air pump usually put it in the basement and run 100 feet of plastic tubing through the floors and walls.

 

[guest116]

They have very quiet, high-tech air pumps on the $$$$ linear trackers nowadays.

Guys who do have a noisy air pump usually put it in the basement and run 100 feet of plastic tubing through the floors and walls.

I use a regular fish tank pump, a Rena Air 400. It's not silent, but I've got it in a closet with the air line running out under the closet door. It's quiet enough that I've left it running overnight by accident.
But the Terminator is a Ladegaard-type arm and needs only a few psi to work. I guess you'd need a more elaborate rig with an arm that needed more pressure. Noise might become a problem then.

 

[kirk57]

You don't need servomotors and complex circuitry to drive the arm; you can float it on air. What's more, you can build an air bearing arm yourself and power it with a simple fish tank pump.
I use the Ladegaard-based Terminator T3Pro. Air is supplied by a pump I bought at a local Petco. No fancy gauges or manifolds are necessary, just a smoothing tank that can be built from an empty plastic milk carton. I adjust the air flow using the control valves on the pump, adding just enough air that the arm will play a wildly off-center test record I made. All other adjustments are standard procedure except for anti-skate 'cause their ain't none.
The Terminator is a simple device, probably less complex in design than the typical unipivot offset arm.
I have a spare table with a servo arm--it's a Beogram TX-2--and a Rabco SL-8E for use as a back-up if something should go wrong with the T3Pro, but there's really nothing to break on the Terminator.
The Rabco was the first good LT arm that I had any experience with and within a few hours of using it I knew that I would never go back to a pivoting arm.
I upgraded to the Terminator in January and I honestly don't think I'll ever get another tone arm. The only thing that would make the setup perfect would be two or three spare arm wands so that I could rotate cartridges.

I bought all the parts to build one of these, but never got around to it. Well, winter is closing in so maybe this year. Is yours the inverted design?

 

[derekva]

I had it on for most of today....the repeat function comes in real handy.....

Unfortunately, the repeat function ruins your records as well. :tears:

-D

 

[Cogsinister]

Unfortunately, the repeat function ruins your records as well. :tears:

-D

May as well not bother playing them at all then.............