Linear tracking turntables, whatever happened?


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.
128x128uberwaltz
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.
Now I just have to decide whether to buy a top flight p mount cart and if that really would make any significant difference.

Not that there is a huge market in p mounts these days.
Well I ponied up and bought a Nagaoka c502mp cart for my SL-10.
Mighty spendy at $60 shipped😁😁.
It's a decent improvement for sure and now has a very dynamic and forward sound, something I do not mind too much.
I can see it getting a bit more usage now it's in my main system and a half decent Cart installed.
Just found this thread and have to say, the ONLY turntable I've owned since 1984 is a ReVox B791.  My cartridge then, and still, is an Ortofon VMS20E and I've found new styli for it in the last few years.

I used to cut master lacquers for vinyl in the late 70s to early 80s and wanted to play vinyl exactly as they were cut.  I've had my 791 serviced a couple of times by a great ReVox tech in Nashville.  The servo drive of the cartridge is absolutely brilliant and, since there isn't any groove distortion, everything I play on it sounds great.

The Ortofon cartridge feeds a Graham Slee preamp into my RME AD/DA interface.  I've used this combo many times to create digital masters for old clients who lost their master tapes, but still have 'test-pressings' that were never played.  With a minimal amount of de-click processing, the files are good enough to make CD masters, yet still have that great sound of vinyl.