It doesn't solve the problem of pivotal tonearms that it plays part of the record "too slow" and part "too fast". Also I guess it still experiences skating and requires antiskating?
Well...there's another opportunity to differentiate your product. Oh, the subsonic pulses weren't audible with mine, either. But you could definitely see them. Curiously, the receivers Sony put out during this time mostly had a "subsonic filter" button, and I can't help but think the two were related...
Hmm, that's a new one on me Depends, some of them like the Thales adjust the offset angle but still have overhang so develop skating force (Thales has a certain amount of anti-skate designed into the arm), but others like Reed and Schroeder use a moving pivot point to maintain tangency without using offset or overhang, so no skating force.
None of the great broadcast cartridges for 45 RPM singles, are available in T4p mount (meaning the Shure M 44-7, Stanton 681A, and similar.) For me, deal breaker.
You describe a product flaw, or simply the effects of an off-center record and the mechanism being outsmarted without proper hysteresis. Technics linear trackers are analog control and a constant correction output, the progress of a normal groove changing the tracking sensor from 0.72V when static, to 0.6V when advancing the transport at a particular groove pitch rate. "None of the great" (lists out-of-production cartridges with double the tracking weight). I think the SL-10, right out of the box with the stock elliptical (MC, with MC boost preamp right at the tonearm wires, boron tube cantilever) might do an adequate job on 45s, if this thread is for what we wish we still had 40 years later:
The PS-LX510 had a very short tonearm sticking out of a carriage that moved incrementally whenever it was detected the tonearm was far enough out of alignment: The motor that moved it in tiny increments clearly generated a bit of infrasonic noise. Or maybe it was the movement of the carriage along the track. Anyhow, you didn't hear anything, but I'm sure it (briefly) robbed your amplifier of some power. For an inexpensive turntable though it sounded great. Better than the cheap conventional turntables any of my friends or relatives had during that era, certainly. How Sony made these so cheap I'm not entirely sure, but it's one of the reasons why I find today's turntables - which are incredibly basic in comparison - ludicrously overpriced.
And need manual override often for colored vinyl. And also are servo (which means they go in and out of tracking error as part of their operational principle). And again, the obsolete T4p mount is also a major problem today as these turntables have few cartridge options with genuine stylus support. And have not been manufactured since 2002 by anyone (Technics SL-BD 20 the last model produced with T4p mount). The more automatic it is, the more moving parts it has, the more complex it is to repair, the more things to fail you with age. The better models of Technics and T4p mount linear are great for what they are. But that cartridge/styli problem is getting major. You're only slightly better off than when Bang & Olufsen abandoned Beogram owners (Until Peter Ledermann of SoundSmith, reverse engineered new replacements for that system). People, I don't hate these machines. I recommend them for people who want plug and play, automatic turntables which are easy to operate. I repair them (and they're very decent for what they are). But they're aging, and they have good and bad like all turntables/tonearms/cartridges do. The SL-10 and SL-15 are tour de force Japanese design and engineering, as is the SL-M1. I admire them as Japanese audio and engineering art. No zero tracking error however exists in vinyl playback, all playback has some degree of tracking error, albeit small. Many of these are now pushing over 25 years old. And were made for shorter periods of time than the earlier models were. Which does sometimes lead to spare parts challenges. Usually the belt for the tonearm carriage is the most frequent service item next to styli.
I wonder why the most expensive TT's in the world do not have linear tracking arms? In the last months of 2021 Michael Fremer at Stereophile reviewed three TT's all of which cost around $400K. None had linear tracking arms.
A $400k turntable is a custom piece being built for wealthy obsessives. If I had a billion I wouldn't spend that kind of money on a turntable unless it was a linear tracker. I mean, why wouldn't you playback the disc in the same way it was cut if money is no object? Of course, if I had that kind of money, I'd probably pay someone to engineer a contactless turntable that makes a microscopic scan of the groove and then converts that to sound using software.
For that much money, for me, it better be a Neumann VMS 80 lathe. And you know what lathe turntables have on them for tonearms. (and it's not linear). Anything most linears can do, can be done better, and more simply with a good 12" tonearm. Which is simple, works well once set up correctly, and far more reliable in daily use. Even a 10" arm done well gets close.
Well, you can argue a linear tracker is overkill, but if you're blowing $400k anyhow, we're well, well past the point of overkill...
(If you've got $400K to spend on a turntable, blow that money on a high-end reel to reel deck and just get your hands on copies of the master tapes themselves. That's gonna sound better than any vinyl...)
Of course there already is such a thing, or close to it, the ELP Laser Turntable. The problem with the ELP, and with any other device that scans the groove, is that it also scans the defects, dirt, and dust, and converts them into a signal, meaning that the error correction aspect of the software is critical. ELP Laser Turntable | JohnK
Yeah but the laser turntables are crazy expensive and - from what I've read - don't work all that well. I think you could do much better today with off-the-shelf camera components like those used for smartphone cameras, a decent lens, and software. The ability to scan the surface with 2 or even 3 cameras would go a long way toward identifying defects and debris and allowing any software to compensate for them.
That's what any feedback control loop is like, what other way is there? Are you saying there is a different way of positioning linear tonearms? The turntable has no way of predicting the space between individual revolutions because they vary, so according to my thinking it'll have to rely on some type of control loop. It's a minor problem for me because I have a number of different T4P systems lying around, but I know I'm not typical If you weren't on the other side of an ocean I might be your customer My SL-QL15 is now 39 years and still working. Still feels "high tech" compared to some modern turntables. Recently also acquired an SL-J1 through ebay which should be 38 years old now, also working very well. It's not as good as the QL15 though because it's belt driven, whereas the QL15 is direct drive and quartz controlled.
Servo arms do not rely on continuous and precise re-positioning; they have conventional pivots that allow for free movement at any given moment. Some work simply by having electrical contact wires that make contact when the arm becomes out of alignment to a certain degree, others determine misalignment optically. I still see a few quite old arms that work quite well, so the basic technology works well. I find the various Thales circle arms to be interesting in design. They perform most basic functions like conventional arms, but they also minimize deviation from tangency and skating forces. The Reed, in particular, is interesting because it does not rely on forces from the stylus playing the record to reposition the arm base to maintain tangency—an optical sensor (laser) and servo mechanism does this.
I have a Stanton L720EE in it, which doesn't sound bad. Per Stanton it is an affordable entry-level P-Mount version of the 500E Mk II.
It's also an adaptation of the 500 EE. Which tracks at 1-2 grams, the 500 A's upscale brother. But it's no 680 or 681, the better line (but there's a T4p mount adapted version of those too, but only usable with the lightest tracking styli in the line in T4p mount applications). Both are excellent cartridges, but genuine styli are long unavailable. And the generics so far need more tracking force to work somewhat well on both families. Major considerations for the T4p mount users. For 1/2" mount users, they can increase tracking forces to help with this.
I finally got her cooking with gas as my 5th grade science teacher would say. No more stutters or hangups! Took about 10-20 hours over about week or so, I pretty much work spend time with the family or listening, sometimes both. Wow, I had no idea what I was missing, I haven't used my pivoted arm since install. The lack of distortion and consistent volume across the entire side is so shocking. Linear trackers definitely have new challenges, but once I understood it a bit and had more experience adjusting, it may even be easier to set up a new cart than with a pivoted arm. The SERIOUS downside is when they are off you get skips and hangups, getting up, that sucked, sometimes 5-6 times a side. Which was incredibly unnerving coming from the Universal arm which has never mistracked, let alone get stuck, on my pretty much completely VG++ or better collection, save for some original Riversides and other mono jazz records which it sailed through. Even the Koetsu RS on it now, nary a peep. The lack of distortion and complete absence of sibilance in areas known to me like WOTWS from Transformer was absolutely worth the effort. Now I'm not sure I want two arms, this one is so amazingly clear. Drum hits on EPTAS were so delineated, I heard every nuance of what KJ was doing. I can't help but feel like running the carriage slightly down hill is some how "incorrect"(force on the inner wall greater, less ability to track the outer groove wall?) and want to see if I can run it perfectly horizontal as stated in the manual, though Clearaudio carts track at 2.5g plus, mine will be 2g. Also I still don't really understand the counterweight dynamics(including VTA effect) and how to cue to different tracks "correctly". They have pictures with the Goldfinger which weighs in at 16g and tracks at 2.8 yet the same size counterweight I'm using is about an inch closer to the carriage with the 10g Ruby to achieve a lower tracking force of 2.2. My stylus is not out front like the GF, so my headshell is further forward than the GF when set up, that should affect it a bit, but this much, what am I missing? If anyone knows please chime in. Linear trackers are highly recommended by this guy Pic is before final setup, wire is dressed differently now.
Could you please explain this in a bit more detail? I have no idea what you mean by: "the problem of pivotal tonearms that it plays part of the record "too slow" and part "too fast". The speed the record is being played at, is controlled by the motor / platter assembly. The types of arms I mentioned above, certainly do solve the tracking error pivotal arms are known for. These types of arms, keep the head shell / cartridge perfectly tangential to the record, just as linear tracking arms do. That is the main problem linear tracking arms are meant to solve, to eliminate tracking error. The amount of tracking error with a linear tracking arm, and one of these types of pivotal arms is identical to each other, zero. Actually, not all the pivotal tangential tonearms need anti skate adjustment. The Thales, for example. But, it's not as if linear tracking arms escape problems scot-free, either. An inexpensive pivotal arm, with usually sound better than an inexpensive linear tracker.
Linear trackers can sound very lifelike and un-mechanical. I also use a Koetsu in mine (a Kuzma Airline). You don't want the arm hanging up because that may mean that the stylus is traveling but the back of the arm is not freely moving-- that will torque your cantilever. I learned a trick from Scot Markwell, the importer- just clean the rail. Yours doesn't use an air-bearing like mine, but dust collects quickly and I found this to be a very effective method to ensure there is nothing obstructing movement of the rear of the arm along its travel length. Despite the differences in design of our respective arms, it looks like Clearaudio does recommend cleaning the glass tube-- check your manual. Though Franc Kuzma has told me he thinks this is unnecessary to do before every playing session, I get these lab wipes that are impregnated with alcohol and it take a minute to do-- with the air bearing (which you don't have), I then move the arm back and forth on the rail to help dry it quickly. Check your manual and perhaps ask your dealer. As to cuing and the like, you'll get better at it. I tend to listen to whole sides rather than single tracks on an album, and am always concerned the needle drop can create a tic in the record. You are also in Mike Trei territory. He's worth using, I don't know what his experience is with these (I remember the original Souther), but he is a set up maestro and well worth the cost of a visit. Enjoy!
It has nothing to do with the rotational speed. With a pivotal tonearm, the needle describes an arc across the record, not a straight line. So for a portion of the record, the needle moves slightly "backward" with each revolution, and for another portion, it moves slightly "foreward" again. Given that the record was cut with a linear head, that translates in the record playing ever so slightly "too slow" for the first portion and "too fast" for the second. Admittedly it's a very minor problem, and much too small to be noticeable to the human ear, but it is there and only linear tonearms solve it. Yes I understood that, and I agree. But tracking error isn't the only problem with pivotal tonearms. It is probably the most relevant though.
It's called air bearing. The most expensive approach. Temperamental unless working completely right. For me, the best servo linears were the old Rabco arms, the Beogram tangential trackers, the Pioneer upper end model aka Phase Linear (then owned by Pioneer), and the ReVox models, followed by the Technics SL-10, SL-15, and SL-M1.
