@Lewm, It is hard to do a true gimbal pivot and keep the vertical bearing at record level. You have to resort to something like what Tri-Planar did.
The SAT arm is a very fat gimbal pivoted arm with a very high vertical bearing. The price is also ridiculous. I wouldn't get it even if I had the money. The Tri-Planar is a better design.
Oh, but you have to listen to it. Right, it is virtually impossible to listen to any arm in your own system without buying it. What other people say it sounds like is close to worthless. The Transcriptors Vestigial Arm taught me that lesson. You have to buy an arm based on it's design and quality of manufacture. So, you have to set parameters for what a good design is. An arm should be very stiff but as light as possible. It should have one wire from from each cartridge pin to the phono stage RCA's or XLR's. The vertical bearing should be at record level and the geometry such that the arm is of neutral balance. It's bearing should lock motion in the axial and torsional directions, and it must have a low friction anti skate mechanism. An opposing magnet system like Reed and Schroder use is ideal. I have learned to stay away from longer arms. They have higher moments of inertia and can not be made as stiff as a shorter arm without adding even more mass. The improvement in tracking error is not even close to being worth the added mass. I am all for tangential tracking. IMHO the biggest benefits are, no skating and a lower moment of inertia. The two that are ideal are the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT. Unfortunately, neither will fit on my turntable. The Reed is also very pricey. There is a German carriage driven arm (can't remember the name) that on paper looks great.
You know how I feel about air bearing arms.
The SAT arm is a very fat gimbal pivoted arm with a very high vertical bearing. The price is also ridiculous. I wouldn't get it even if I had the money. The Tri-Planar is a better design.
Oh, but you have to listen to it. Right, it is virtually impossible to listen to any arm in your own system without buying it. What other people say it sounds like is close to worthless. The Transcriptors Vestigial Arm taught me that lesson. You have to buy an arm based on it's design and quality of manufacture. So, you have to set parameters for what a good design is. An arm should be very stiff but as light as possible. It should have one wire from from each cartridge pin to the phono stage RCA's or XLR's. The vertical bearing should be at record level and the geometry such that the arm is of neutral balance. It's bearing should lock motion in the axial and torsional directions, and it must have a low friction anti skate mechanism. An opposing magnet system like Reed and Schroder use is ideal. I have learned to stay away from longer arms. They have higher moments of inertia and can not be made as stiff as a shorter arm without adding even more mass. The improvement in tracking error is not even close to being worth the added mass. I am all for tangential tracking. IMHO the biggest benefits are, no skating and a lower moment of inertia. The two that are ideal are the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT. Unfortunately, neither will fit on my turntable. The Reed is also very pricey. There is a German carriage driven arm (can't remember the name) that on paper looks great.
You know how I feel about air bearing arms.