@larryi, there is a problem with this statement:
Bass is typically mastered monophonically, which means only lateral
movement of the stylus tracing the groove. The higher effective mass in
the horizontal plane would keep the arm from moving so easily so that
all of that bass information is imparted to moving the cantilever which
means that all of the bass information is actually recovered by the
cartridge.
The problem is that bass is not mastered monophonically! Its mastered in stereo like everything else. Dealing with out-of phase bass is a problem in modern recordings, which is why a lot of mastering houses employ a passive device that makes the bass mono for a few milliseconds until the out of phase bass problem has passed. We have such a device in our mastering suite, but prefer not to use it; so far anyway I've found that if you just spend a little more time with a mastering project and do some test cuts, you can sort out a way around the out of phase bass without resorting to processing, which I like to avoid.
Further, the higher lateral mass simply means that the arm can be moving one way while the cantilever is going the other way. I've seen this in air-bearing arms with cartridges that are too compliant, and in one case at a local dealer's shop (House of High Fidelity of St. Paul, no longer in business) the excess motion resulted in the cartridge body shedding the cantilever entirely! So this issue should not be ignored or overlooked!
FWIW, I'm a huge fan of the idea of linear tracking. I think there is a way to make it work too; it will have to be a solution that has the vertical and lateral tracking masses being the same, while at the same time having the arm bearings in the same plane as the LP (to avoid change in tracking pressure on bass notes or warp).
Some of the alternative solutions like the Schroeder arm might do the trick. I'm still looking for the bearings to be in the same plane as the LP; not seen that yet.
