Linear tracking turntables, whatever happened?

@ct0517 
You are correct,my initial thread post was in reference to the all in one decks like the Revox b795 etc.
I do realise there are still a number of aftermarket linear tonearm for sale.

But not really anything you see sold as a complete package ready to go as per conventional tonearm/belt drive/direct drive TT are.

So more of a question along the lines of why did they appear to fail as a package deal to the consumer in general?

It would be foolish to judge a linear tonearm by the look. Should they be made of gold and diamonds to please all the doubting Thomas´ and naysayers ?

As our fast running friend just pointed out, OP may very well refer to vintage packaged deal TT setups. Actually my friend once had that Technics SL10 and it worked just fine and sounded quite convincing.
Beautiful gadget.

Uberwaltz
IMO - Those decks are probably the closest thing to the convenience of a CD player.
Put in a record and close the cover. But owning a good TT rig requires TT hygiene. The record and stylus needs maintenance and cleaning. Its I think easier to forget about this especially to a younger person. The styli , from younger lazy people (like my son i.e.) , probably got so gunked up with dust and other debris that they deteriorated the sound worse and worse over time. The stylus hard to see if you can believe it.  

With the focus on convenience they were made very compact with a tiny tonearm/plinth. Not good.  But overall for its size still had heft.. 

I used to own an sl1200 that I used to loan out to people.  I should have done a comparison shootout with the sl10 when I had the chance for curiosity. But have since sold the sl1200 ...and ...unlike my stocks  8^(((... the sl1200 has gone up in price... alot !  

The best linear tracker tonearms use the same force for movement as a pivot arm - the groove.

This depends on what is meant by this statement.
A number of linear trackers employ an air bearing, and thus have lateral tracking mass that is several times that of the vertical tracking mass. Quite often with such arms the side to side forces on the cantilever become the tracking angle error! This can exceed a good radial tracking arm.


So I'm not sure that qualifies as 'The best'.


A servo to control the rear of the arm as the arm moves across the LP (such as the old Rabco SL8) is a better solution, although the Rabco itself had many other problems. But if a modern version of such an arm were built, it could easily solve most of the issues that were a plague to the Rabco.

Ct, In the absence of any friction at the pivot point, yes there is no need for any external force to move the arm wand/cartridge across the LP surface.  However, in the real world, there is never zero friction.  Thus we first had the Rabco SL8, referred to by Ralph, which used a servo motor to nudge the pivot each time the arm wand moved in tiny arcs at the stylus contact point; the Rabco makes a series of tiny arcs all across the LP surface, the servo motor makes noise, yadayada.  Arguably, it's not even a true SL tonearm.  The Goldmund TF tonearm is naught but a very expensive copy of the Rabco idea.  We also have the Souther tonearm which operates in concert with a "dished" platter (marketed in recent years by Clearaudio), so that the cartridge "falls" toward the spindle whilst riding on a rail.  The most pure form of the art is the air bearing type, which at least strives for zero friction.  But since that is impossible, side forces are created, as described by Ralph. In addition, one must fuss with air pumps, etc. But certain examples, like the Terminator, can be very good. I don't need to own an SL tonearm or turntable in order to know these things.  What about you?

The only full bore turntable/SL tonearm available now comes from Germany, I think, but I cannot recall its name.  Another German company, Brinkmann may also make one.