Linear Tracker ...I was wondering

Jond
A member with a lot more knowledge of ET arms than myself took a look and said it's an ET1.0 arm, an early piece so more of a collector piece than SOTA ( sorry I just HAD to!).

Still the table itself might be a good buy at the right price of course.....

That is indeed the table I would go for, the SLM3. But it looks like it’s designed for a Pmount cartridge. Would you know if it accepts more current standard cartridges?

Cool. Nothing wrong with a P-Mount cartridges if you don’t mind to buy some of the best from the golden era. I bought my first P-Mount cartridge this year for use with pivoted tonearms. And i’ve seen many great p-mount versions from Technics, Stanton, Pickering, Audio-Technica ...

The solid build of the SL1200 makes it a keeper. Thus, I was thinking of keeping the unit and just changing the arm. If the SLM3 can accomodate a normal cartridge, I would be a definite option.

I have two SL1210mkII (not in the main system), they are upgraded, but still with stock tonearms. Using many vintage tonearms in another system i’ve noticed some of them could be great for Technics. Linear tracking tonearms are normally monsters, i never thought about them for any turntable. Conventional pivoted tonearms are great and there are many within your price range that can be used on SL1200mk5

Uber thanks for the heads up Linear Trackers scare the hell out of me anyway! :)

Jond.

I have been on the fence for a long while and can't seem to persuade myself to take the plunge.

I am assured it really is not hard work but when you grown up on a life time of pivot arms it takes some getting used to it.

Maybe one day......

It has absolutely nothing to do with IMHO. Everything that I said is a fact of life. The best linear tracker available today is the Walker and it still has an unacceptably high horizontal effective mass. I will say this again. The horizontal axis has to be servo driven and the arm has to have a horizontal pivot just like a normal pivoted tonearm. Some older linear arms worked by tripping a switch which activated the drive but the arm had to deviate from tangent to trip the switch negating the benefit and the systems tended to be unreliable. When some one develops a reasonably priced system that reads the groove right in front or behind the stylus driving the horizontal axis I am all in. Otherwise you are much better off with a good pivoted arm. How many reviewers use a linear tracker as their reference? Air bearings can create very low friction systems but do nothing to reduce horizontal effective mass. Mass is mass, friction or not and these systems are extremely sensitive to level. Keeping a turntable exactly level under all circumstances is very difficult. Just differences in record weight can change the level of a turntable unless it is extremely rigidly mounted. Then you have all that air rushing around (making noise) and the complexity of using a compressor. With a servo driven horizontal axis level does not mater as much and there is no wind noise. Put your ear next to the bearing and listen. 
Again, don't believe me watch for yourself. The cantilever should appear dead straight at all times. With any linear tracker you chose you will be able to see the cantilever drift back and forth. I can understand the draw but when it comes down to reality these arms are just not ready for prime time.