Linear tracking turntables, whatever happened?

Chris.
Guess it's time for my test mofi pressing of Crime of the Century then.

With the best track being the last track so yes very familiar with it.

Report to follow......

I realize it is not an expensive unit compared to your other table....but maybe..... it will give you a glimpse into what is possible. 

If you want to know why linear trackers are a bad idea just watch the cantilever closely while playing a record. The cantilever will deflect towards the spindle and eventually the tonearm follows, overshoots a little deflecting the cantilever away from the spindle than the whole process starts over again. What you have is an oscillating skating force. The sad fact of the matter is that the horizontal effective mass is way too high. The cartridge no longer has any leverage over the horizontal bearing. Even the Clearaudio arms do this.  The right way to do this would be to read the groove lateral movement maybe optically right in front of the stylus and drive the tonearm across the record with a servo mechanism. We can get lasers to read tiny pits in plastic why not groove lateral velocity? 

Correction to my previous post.
It's an AT92E p mount not a Shure, my bad.

Chris
I have to say it is sounding rather good.
Certainly no inner groove distortion, not that I ever really noticed that on the 401 unless my cart setup was way off.
This old AT cart is producing an admirable amount of bass and mid. Some of the top end sparkle is missing compared to the Koetsu in the 401 ( as it should bearing in mind the price difference!).
Certainly very listenable.