Linear Tracker ...I was wondering

JagJag One small thing that I have picked up in all the very good advice given. There is a small difference in sound (pick up-ability) quality between a good pivoted arm and a linear tracker. But, there IS a difference.

JagJag - IMO - You can't make generalizations like that.
The reality is every linear tracker, unlike pivot arms, is very, very, different in design and execution. 

How big of a difference there is, is directly proportional to ....at the top of my head.

1) tonearm quality/design/capability,
2) setup-capability,
3) the turntable it is going on (this is fixed), (cartridges are exchangeable variables)
4) how resolving a person's room is. Do you listen in near field or is it a shared family space ? 

The above could make the difference you hear larger than you assume. This could be good and bad. It could make things worse by amplifying the weaknesses in you chain, setting you down extra rabbit holes. 

A pivot arm set up well, will out perform a linear tracker that has not been optimized.

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IMO - The best advice you have received on this thread is from Tom.

The only way to really understand the setup, quirks and sonic +\- is long term ownership. I am betting few have been there.

And I Loved the thread comments aimed at Debbie Downer - 8^0

Cheers Chris 

Notice not one mention of why  you would want to go to a linear tracker in the the 1st place.  In the the OP case maybe A little more work than the rest of his systems needs.  But as anyone SHOULD know, you would have to know what he is looking for sound wise and listen to it in his system with want ever cart he wants to run.  

The variables in tone arms are endless.  To take one of the variables and make it the absolute deal breaker is insane. I could go on and on but I am starting to bore myself!!!  But I guess if you sleep better at night knowing your antiskate and null points are set properly, what else could one ask for???

Enjoy the ride
Tom

To Bill’s point about symmetrical stylus wear - a photomicrograph from a scanning electron microscope demonstrated minimal, nearly perfectly symmetrical stylus wear at just under 1000 hours. At Koetsu rebuild costs ... draw your own conclusions.

That may not be wholly attributable to the Trans-Fi, though. Being fanatical about record cleanliness (ultrasound) may have had something to do with the minimal wear.

Bill, I have owned two of them and played with God knows how many. It is nice that your Yamaha uses light beams as a limit switch.  As I said above, when somebody does it right without compromise I am all in. It is great that you have kept your table alive so long and I love your dust cover. Yamaha was certainly headed in the right direction.  But, a Sota Sapphire with a Kuzma 4 point 9 on it is going to sound better. Why? First it is suspended. The Kuzma is a very stiff arm with excellent bearings and it has no automation gizmos hanging off of it. It is also rigidly attached to the same platform as the platter fixing that relationship. When you increase the complexity of a rather simple but sensitive device you take risks and you have to spend a lot of money controlling all these variables.
It is just much harder to make a complicated device like a linear tracker work as well as a simple passive device. It is also bound to be less reliable and less durable. 

Dork, if your Terminator is so hot why are you selling it? Rube Goldberg could not have come up with that arm. But my absolute favorite was the Harmon Kardboard design with the rubber wheel that tracked a revolving drum! I won one in a raffle! Used it for 6 months or so. It worked! Sort of, as long as you did not listen to it. The revolving drum and rubber wheel rumbled and I could not figure out a way to dampen it out. Subwoofers were not all the rage back then but I was using two RH Labs subs and I guess HK didn't figure that into their design. It was so bad I bought another Linn. Sucker born every minute.