Regarding the Trans-Fi arm: it is somewhat different to the ET 2, but it has more in common with it than with radial arms. It has an ingenious knife edge bearing for the vertical movement, a gravity loaded, open low pressure high flow air bearing, a very short and very stiff arm / sledge connection, and medium high rigidity for twisting the sleigh around the vertical axis. It is a *functionally* very high precision bearing design, that puts less strain on production tolerances than the ET 2.
The vertical movement geometry, with a high vertical bearing and considerably lower tracing point, is similar to some older linear trackig tonearms like Revox, or the Souther / Clearaudios, but is much better / stiffer in implementation. The closest today (in vertical geometry) is the RS Labs RS-1 arm. This geometry has some well known and discussed drawbacks (FM modulation with vertical warps) - but it has one less well known (nor discussed) advantage:
Placing the vertical bearing in +/- a line that extends the cantilever upwards (+/- 20 degrees) it reduces/eliminates a dynamical vertical force generated at the cantilever bearing, which is created by varying tracing friction.
The effect is very similar to the dynamic forces that are created by the horizontal offset angle of radial arms’, which varies dynamically too, and thus constantly feeds vibration energy into the arm/cartridge resonant system. Horizontal in the latter case, vertical in the case of all arms that set the vertical axis eg. on platter level or rel. low.
The Trans-Fi has outstanding customer reactions, the bass seems one of its key qualities (not as a trade-off), similar to the RS Labs RS-1. It is probably a bargain, similar to the Adanalog arm, but in engineering terms it has almost no compromises.This said, it *is* quite a huge "machine" that works only with stiffly suspended substantial turntable drives.
The vertical movement geometry, with a high vertical bearing and considerably lower tracing point, is similar to some older linear trackig tonearms like Revox, or the Souther / Clearaudios, but is much better / stiffer in implementation. The closest today (in vertical geometry) is the RS Labs RS-1 arm. This geometry has some well known and discussed drawbacks (FM modulation with vertical warps) - but it has one less well known (nor discussed) advantage:
Placing the vertical bearing in +/- a line that extends the cantilever upwards (+/- 20 degrees) it reduces/eliminates a dynamical vertical force generated at the cantilever bearing, which is created by varying tracing friction.
The effect is very similar to the dynamic forces that are created by the horizontal offset angle of radial arms’, which varies dynamically too, and thus constantly feeds vibration energy into the arm/cartridge resonant system. Horizontal in the latter case, vertical in the case of all arms that set the vertical axis eg. on platter level or rel. low.
The Trans-Fi has outstanding customer reactions, the bass seems one of its key qualities (not as a trade-off), similar to the RS Labs RS-1. It is probably a bargain, similar to the Adanalog arm, but in engineering terms it has almost no compromises.This said, it *is* quite a huge "machine" that works only with stiffly suspended substantial turntable drives.