Curious as to the demise and downfall of the seemingly short lived linear tracking TT. Just from a geometry point of view I would have thought a linear arm should be superior to one with a fixed pivot that sweeps through an arc. Obviously there is much more to it than that, sort of the reason for this thread. I am genuinely interested in trying one out for myself as well.
uberwaltz I used to be a short drive to Larry's at TTW. I knew Larry before "TTW" and the higher prices. I was therefore able to pick up and experiment with a lot of stuff when I was in "that phase". We talked about setting up one of the ET2's in his showroom. It never happened, and remembering back I always found his showroom unbearable due to the cigarette smoke. You don't want the tonearm, or yourself inhaling that stuff.
Then found a local machinst who would made some custom for me. Then the phase came to end. You know, been there, done that.
Accessories, paraphanelia can make this Audio hobby interesting, especially with vinyl and, people go to both extremes with it, as it relates to the record.
Some will lock down the plastic, with multiple weights and clamps. Make it more secure than a high security prison.
Then others, will try to make the record float on points.
The description of sliding the record into place is perhaps inaccurate, only because it sounds tricky. It’s not tricky.
The record must held on a slight angle and inserted into the space between the manifold beam / cue bar at the top, and the TT platter / spindle below, then placed on the spindle.
It sounds much harder than it is. As soon as you have the arm fitted to the TT, it is obvious how to move the record. Try it with an old one first, or use a modicum of care, and everything will be fine.
If the spindle is short, that helps a lot, which is why I built my TT that way.
Just to give you all a laugh and bring this thread back to the actual area I first envisioned. I bought an old Sansui P-L45 table in working order but no stylus. Fitted a replacement AT stylus that was correct to the AT p mount cart in it and spun an album.
I am honestly shocked just how nice it sounds! For a grand sum of $55 all in.
Eric. Cleaning the record is not an issue. Cleaning the stylus however requires a one knee drop. I don't like to talk about my knees. I have runners knees. At middle age my Doc says my hearing is great, like a young mans, but my knees are old age. 8^(
You mentioned that you like the armwand pointing at you. With La Platine, it is a design that can be positioned - turned, so the armwand is pointing anywhere on the clock really. Like wise the motor can go left, back or to the right. Kinda cool. I am very familiar with the short arm wand as I still own a Dy navector hybrid tonearm. I know that Bruce did a lot testing before he settled on the length of the ET2 armwand.
Chris, I’m picturing you on your knees in front of your 18" high turntable shelf, cleaning your stylus and records. Adds to the "ritual" aspect of LP playing that analog detractors are fond of citing ;-) .
The tip of the long cue bar is only point of potentially destructive contact with a carelessly handled LP. I added a small rubber nipple to the tip to address that.
Bdp24 - The LP DOES however need to be slid under the manifold, which is locked in position over the back of the LP, about half way between it’s center hole and it’s perimeter.
Eric - My turntable shelf was custom made. It sits 18 inches high and when I load or remove a record I am much higher than the table, looking down. I find it an ergonomic way of loading and removing vinyl, with arms extended.
Thinking about that manifold permanently fixed over the platter, I can't seem to get Beach Limbo out of my mind. I have had accidents in the past with the record and stylus. I need a clear runway when landing and taking off.
@ct0517, to add to Dave’s excellent comments, and in the cause of clarification, let me say no, record changes are NOT made by sliding the LP under the cartridge/stylus (and the arm wand onto which is mounted the cartridge). At the end of an LP side, the wand is returned to it’s rest position, at the far right end of the arm’s manifold, where it is out of way of the LP. The LP DOES however need to be slid under the manifold, which is locked in position over the back of the LP, about half way between it’s center hole and it’s perimeter. Other linear trackers avoid this by having a longer arm wand, making it possible for the arm’s main structure to be located beside the table’s platter, not positioned over it.
The manifold being suspended over the LP makes possible a shorter arm wand, which has benefits (lower mass, inertia, and resonances) and one penalty (greater changes in VTA and SRA when navigating warps, resulting in possible "warp wow"; a table providing LP flattening---via vacuum hold down or a clamp---is good for the arm). One thing I like about the Terminator is the arm wand/cartridge/stylus facing the operator, rather than being 90 degrees perpendicular as with other linear-tracking arms; makes cueing much easier!---Eric.
Its DIY heritage begins with the original design by Poul Ladegaard. IIRC, he envisioned this as a linear tonearm that could be built at a kitchen table using basic tools and standard parts from a hardware store. Vic at Trans-Fi turned that into a commercial offer, with a professional fit and finish and a steady stream of running improvements. It's humble origin should in no way suggest that the design is unsophisticated.
For the purchaser, the DIY part is principally the tank, pump, and airline. This is no big deal, as all one needs is a low-pressure aquarium pump(mine is a Rena 400), a gallon plastic petrol can as a smoothing tank, silicone tubing, and brass nipple fittings from Home Depot. The low operating pressure has design advantages, and avoids the complexity of the high pressure pumps associated with captured air bearings(e.g. extraction of moisture and compressor noise.)
Vic includes a Delrin tower on which to mount the arm base to a turntable plinth. He builds each tower to the dimensions of platter height and armboard of the customer's TT. Alternatively, the customer can fabricate a tower with better metal materials such as brass or stainless steel. I made a custom brass turntable base that drops into the stock collet of a Kenwood L-07D. This preserves the VTA adjustment of the original Kenwood tonearm.
Set-up is straight-forward, but it is critical to align the air manifold such that the stylus tracks a perfectly straight line from the perimeter of the LP to the center of the record spindle. For a template, I took a 12" strobe disk and scribed a radius from the center of the spindle hole. Once the manifold is painstakingly aligned, you wouldn't want to ruin that by pivoting it to change records. The cue bar raises the wand enough to allow careful sliding of the LP in from the side. This is only a hassle if the turntable has a really tall spindle.
One must carefully dress the flying tonearm wires through the supplied gantry to avoid torqueing the wand as the sled travels across the air manifold. This takes practice, particularly with high compliance cartridges.
One area ripe for DIY improvements is adding mass to the front of the flat wand in order to optimize vertical effective mass across a wide range of cartridge compliances. I found it useful to machine a kit of small brass weights that can be dropped into the large holes in the wand between the cartridge mount and the vertical pivot bearing.
It's a neat high-performance arm. IMO, it's only shortcoming is that it doesn't leave enough room to mount additional pivot arms to the TT.
Thanks for the plug, Lew and Raul. Regarding Trans-Fi, I haven't kept up with Vic's latest innovations, but am all in on its excellent performance independent of price. As a DIYer, I eventually migrated from the stock alum sled/cradle with knife bearings, to a customized assembly with point bearings and a lightened sled with a thin, reinforced carbon fiber shell around a foam core. The goal was to decrease horizontal mass, which in the stock setup is low relative to most linear tonearms but high relative to a pivot arm. To take things further, a friend with a medical instruments business fabricated a wand-less vertical bearing for the sled that accepts a standard detachable headshell. This idea is versatile in terms accommodating interchangeable cartridges, but lightweight for low-compliance cartridges. My overall experience is that Trans-Fi is at the intersection of commercial and DIY-- a fine and economical solution for anyone curious about linear tonearms.
sgunther et al who use the Terminator: The most knowledgeable guy I know as regards the Terminator is Dave Garretson. He devised a novel way to reduce drag of the wiring on the movement of the arm and he also manufactured a novel arm wand with adjustable effective mass and reduced resonance. All this was done under the aegis of Vic. Perhaps you know all this. Dave is a member here.
Harold in the barrel and Terry 9. I am also a happy owner of Vic's Terminator and Salvation with all of his modifications. In addition, I purchased a machined aluminum arm mount from Owen Young (Dark lantern) and will receive a graphite wand from Andrey tomorrow. I am not interested in the debate of linear versus pivot but I am very interested in the modifications you have made that improve performance Terminator/Salvation. I got the impression you two were going to take your further discussion regarding Terminator/Salvation off line. If you do not mind I would like to participate in that discussion. Thanks Steve Gunther
You do not want to know it is supposed to be 78 here today? Standing here in shorts and t-shirt listening to a ripped CD through my Aries Mini. Usually save the vinyl until evening.
analogluvr @ct0517 my comment of disbelief about how much they sell for was more directed at the used market where you can pick them up for around 1000$
analogluvr et al
Taken from Stereophile data. Description: Air-bearing straight line tonearm with detachable arm tubes. Wide range of user adjustments. Price: $850 (1984); $950 (1989–1991); $2900 (ET2.5, 2011).
Now taken from the Brooks Berdan website
"Eminent Technology was established in 1983 to create innovative products in the audio field. Eminent Technology's first product was a air bearing straight line tracking tonearm for phonograph playback. This was the first implementation of a captured air bearing for tonearm use. Eminent Technology's second product, dubbed the ET-2, was a more advanced version of the captured air bearing tonearm concept and it went on to become the most successful selling high-end tonearm."
********* Sales Strategy
To those that read between the lines - summarized above is the pricing and the marketing strategy that made it the most successful. IMO - This sales strategy was not about putting out 25 pieces and charging the highest audiophile pricing like is done with some of todays products. This was about bringing this technology to everyone. To help achieve this the sales strategy placed the tonearm as an option on the most popular tables of the day.
Now owners pass on, and inheritors put these arms up for sale. One reason they come up on ebay. If one comes up on Ebay ask the seller what PSI the arm was set up for. It can run on 3 psi and the early ones partnered on SOTA, Oracle, VPI tables were probably these versions; unless the previous owners had a higher pressure manifold put on.
Bruce Thigpen also customized each manifold PSI setting based on customer needs, for those tonearms sold that were sold individually.
We have discussed how to determine what PSI the ET2 manifold/air bearing has been set for on the ET2 Tonearm Owners thread. (in the case of someone buying one used on the market)
***********
Frigid temps here again today Uberwaltz - shaping up for a Digital afternoon warmup and then bring in the heavy vinyl artillery.
Brooks Berdan was (RIP) my turntable guy, and he loved the ET. He was first mounting it on the Oracle (a table for which he came up with a mod, which Oracle themselves eventually incorporated), and later the VPI's, particularly the TNT. The arm likes a high mass platform, which VPI's of course are. He was also a Versa Dynamics dealer, but that linear tracking arm/table was a LOT more money.
It's a great hobby. The idea of the stylus tracing a record exactly as the cutting head makes perfect sense. Yet there are different ways of going about it for the best sound, the least wear on records etc... If you're looking to fall in love, (as I did) years ago, just like @ct0517 mentioned earlier, "LTL", you have that outlet to explore.
It seems I really started something here which is wonderful. However most of it is way over my head and makes me think I must be missing out big time on my vinyl reproduction. But then I step back take a deep breath and put a record on and think, "well if it gets better than this I am not sure I really need it!"
Keep up the banter and information as some of it is sinking in!
@bdp24 , Using my ET with the VPI MKIV, I realized that the spring suspension wasn't optimal. I then modified that table to use Symposium Rollerblock Jrs. That was a definite improvement in SQ but still, I felt the ET needed a solid/stable support.
I use to see the ET on SOTA tts all the time. Since I've never owned one, I cannot comment. The one thing I've learned over the years is, in audio, things aren't always black & white.
@slaw, I know the Moerch arms are another favorite with Rock owners, which is surprising to me given their relatively low mass characteristics. I’ve seen listings for a Townshend Audio Excalibur II arm, but no pics. I have also heard talk of a replacement for the Rock 7, but that was a couple of years ago. The table itself has been in and out of production a LOT of times over the past 30 or so years. For those who are unfamiliar with the Rock, it is intrinsically unusable with linear tracking arms, owing to the arms’ front-end damping trough, which mandates a pivoted arm.
Please tell us what Rabinow did with coat hangers to prevent a toilet from being flushed while the train was in the station. Inquiring minds want to know.
This has been a pretty informative thread~ For another story, I knew a guy back in Pittsburgh, where I grew up, who mounted a Vestigal arm (remember those, with the wagging headshell attached to a string which tensioned it?) to a Rabco. In theory, I guess it made sense.* In practice, I don’t remember. This was back in the mid-’70s. _________________ *Or maybe not, given the discussion of vertical inertia here- I don't have the physics knowledge to assess this meaningfully.
The ET was on a VPI, will be on my TT project at some point. I'm using a Funk Firm FXR on the Rock 7 The FF arm has X bracing in the arm tube, making it very stiff. Has Max ever released his latest arm?
An interesting story [possibly apocryphal] about Jack Rabinow, the inventor of the Rabco Linear Tracking Tonearm : While traveling on a train, Jack went to use the restroom and was intrigued by the sign, "Please Do Not Flush While in Station", and when he returned to his seat he began figuring out a way to disable the flushing function of the toilet when the train was standing still. He took some wire coat hangers and twisted them into a device that did exactly that ! I guess that kind of thinking was the same that went into the original Rabco tonearm ! I owned one for a few years and even tweaked it with a balsa wood replacement tonearm but never was happy with its clunky performance. A Revox b795 and a Technics SL-10 were next in line and both were good TTs, but it wasn't until I mated a Souther Linear Tracker to my Garrard 301 TT that I finally realized my "Audio Nirvana". A Lyra "Helikon" cartridge is supremely happy with the arrangement. On very rare occasion the "tonearm/trolley" that holds the cartridge and runs along two parallel quartz rods will hang up and require the rods to be swabbed with alcohol to correct the problem. I see no other TTs in my future --------- .
Hey slaw, I guess you have your ET on a VPI, not your Townshend Audio Rock 7, ay? ;-) What arm is on your Rock? My Rock Elite (Mk.2) was made with it’s damping trough having an arc diameter appropriate for the shorter-than-usual Townshend Excalibur arm. The Zeta I use with my Rock is very close to the Excalibur in that regard (pivot-to-stylus distance), but has much better bearings (and a great stiff arm tube).
The Helius Omega arm has found favour amongst UK owners of the Rock 7. The Silver/Ruby version is especially nice, but at a not-so-nice price ;-) . Townshend Audio and Helius just happen to share the same U.S.A. distributor. Tim de Paravicini also recommends the Omega for use on his EAR Disc Master turntable, the table Audiogon member folkfreak owns (I saw and heard it in his music room last year), though he uses different arms (two) on his.
Regarding your post above...that the ET user should set the record height level with the inscribed line in the center of the manifold.....although I’ve owned mine for 30 years, and I set mine up (eyed) for the record height to be in the center of the spindle (looking straight into the spindle), I never remember reading in the manual any indication of that "inscribed line", therefore, I never noticed it. I just uncovered mine just to check and it is correct. (These types of things would be great to read in the manual.) I think it could use a re-write.
@whart Yeah looking at it on my phone.it appears once it threads in that's it because it ties into the Armtube. In the ET design there is a long air bearing spindle with the Armtube and end cap at opposite ends. Can be adjusted independently.
https://flic.kr/p/S8x8RW Dunno if this will work but here’s a shot of where the counterweight threaded tube mounts on the back of the air-bearing housing- looks like it is a threaded hole. Period. Thanks, @ct0517 if you click on the image link, and then click the image itself once it opens, it will enlarge.
@ct0517 - another good question which will require a little exploration by me. Just when I thought I knew how to set this thing up after all these years! Your learning is valuable and obviously transferable-- Just literally removed my regular cartridge- have a rebuilt vintage cartridge arriving today as a stop gap (of all things, one of those old Monster Genesis 1000s). So, I can at least mess around with the arm a bit even though the cartridge I'll be using for now is far different in mass (and other things) from the Airtight that is going off for a rebuild.
Moment of Inertia is denoted by I and is the angular analogue of mass. It is defined as the sum of (mass of molecule x distance to pivot squared). This is approximated by an integral (calculus), which is easier to calculate.
Thus, for a beam of just sufficient length and just sufficient strength to support the counterweight, the greatest Moment of Inertia I will be obtained by positioning the beam extending from the pivot parallel to an extension of the arm wand.
The obvious tradeoff is the amount of material required to position the beam that way.
There are other tradeoffs - one wants adjustability and rigidity and resonance control in the beam. Thus a system of a light but rigid tubing (say magnesium), with a lump of tungsten on the end, threading into a nut on the end of the arm, would give you the highest I/m ratio, but may be compromised with respect to resonance. I should try that on the Trans-Fi.
Bdp24 - My knowledge of physics is rather limited, so let me ask those of you who finished high school (;-) if the following is correct:
@bdp24 I never learned Physics in school. It was learned through real life experiences...especially near death ones. 8^0 Picture this - approaching a corner at speed, just after a rain, in a 1996 rear engine 993.
************
I am not sure what you're asking Eric; but I can tell you the Eminent Tech Tonearm has a horizontal inscribed line on the center of the manifold housing. When doing setup the User is supposed to set the record level with this line. Another area where setup error occurs.
If you follow the center of the air bearing out to the counterweights one can see that all is in the same line. The I Beam is level with this inscribed line.
Now the interesting part. If one loosens the end cap that holds the I Beam and Weights. and tilts it downward a bit - one can tune the bass and give it more heft. You will also be changing the VTF when you do this. Like wise in reverse - tilt it up - and the signal becomes leaner.
One can set the sound to ones room depending on the gear. If the room is bass heavy tilt it up a bit and vice versa if the sound is lean.
****************** @whart are you able to loosen a bolt on the Kuzma Airline to tilt the counterweight rod up or down ?
My knowledge of physics is rather limited, so let me ask those of you who finished high school (;-) if the following is correct:
To achieve higher moment-of-inertia (same as mass?) in the vertical plane, the mass of a counterweight should be located as near as possible to the line described by the arm tube running through the arm’s bearings. In other words, extending left and right of that line in the lateral (horizontal) plane as little as possible, i.e. as close as possible to the arm's bearings laterally. The opposite of that is the Groovetracer counterweight made for Rega arms, which is in the "longhorn" style---extending a couple of inches to the left and right of the rear stub onto which it is installed.
If the above is true, I can envision, say, lead weights being attached to a counterweight above and below the hole running through it for the arm tube’s rear stub, but not to either side of that hole. Correct?
@whart you can take your counterweight as is into a Home Depot right now and go to the bolts section. they have a rack with bolts sticking out. See which of the bolts it threads into. Coming from Europe it will be metric. That gives you the thread pattern information. Then you can pick up a few nuts fatter and skinnier with that thread pattern and use those to test with. Use as many as needed to get it to the end of the rod. Once the number of bolts required is known - take them into the machinists/bike people and see if they can make you up one nut in that weight and thread pattern. DIY
@ct0517 - thank you. The FAQ on Franc’s site talks about an optional lighter counterweight. The Airtight Supreme is going to get rebuilt very soon, and I may also try a couple other cartridges, but I guess what you are suggesting is what- smaller lighter weight to go further back on that rod further away from the headshell? My bet is Franc could probably supply those without much trouble, but yeah, there are a couple of pretty good people here who rebuild vintage bikes, do basic mechanical work, so getting it done isn’t a problem, knowing exactly what to ask for is my challenge. Or, re-reading, it is a materials issue, not just a weight/balance issue?
@whart I doubt the arm design has changed. See what Franc says. Myself, I would be tempted to remove your counterweight and bring into a machinist. He can make up new counterweights for you using the thread pattern the rod uses and in whatever material you like to match your arm. i can't see the cost been alot and the reason I mention it. You could start by having him make something that will work. Then if the difference is dramatic, have counterweights made in the material you prefer.
From the looks and angle of the picture it looks you are giving up 15 -20 % leverage (physics) If its a cartridge you are going to keep on there for the long term its worth pursuing. With vinyl rigs I have always found that it is the attention to the small details that make big differences.
Whart - My understanding is that both weights work in concert. One does the locking ? Does Frank offer smaller weights to get you to the end of the rod with that cart ?
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
