Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

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

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.

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.

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 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