Top linear trackers
You are right about the potential drag. Another significant advantage the ET has over the Kuzma, Rockport etc is the decoupled counterweight system in the horizontal plain. This lowers the horizontal effective mass as seen by the cartridge - significantly lower than the other options - and in actual fact lower horizontal effective mass than some of the pivoted heavyweights arms eg FR64S & Dynavectors.
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It seems to me that the biggest strengths of the Terminator are: 1. adjustability - everything is adjustable. All adjustments are intuitive. VTA and horizontality can be done on the fly. I would wish for more accurate adjustment of tangentiality, but no linear tracker is any better; I think. Azimuth is very precisely adjustable, but fiddly. 2. tweakability - It is easy to increase mass. It is easy to increase damping. It is easy to install a new wand, and not that complex to design one. It is a simple matter to build a second tower to support the other end of the beam, and incorporate a fine adjustment of horizontality. But this sacrifices easily adjustable VTA. Likewise the greatest weakness seems to have been missed: vertical movement is allowed by two pivot screws which are set into two 90 degree vee’s. This junction is not inherently stable, but it’s stable enough for most records. Conclusion: I own two, and consider them the best bargain in high end. One is on a Nottingham Analogue Mentor (updated to Dais standards), the other on a DIY air bearing which features an air cushion in all 3 dimensions. I’m hoping my DIY linear tracker will solve the T’s problems without introducing new ones, but hey, that’s DIY for you. |
Hi twoleftears , while the Thales is an interesting design, it has its own set of problems. It still has the skating force to deal with, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to have bearings so close to the cartridge. If I am in the market for a pivotal tangential arm, I'll be looking at something like the Schroder LT or the Reef 5A instead. |
@thekong I am guilty of having no experience with high pressure LT arms. Hence I make assumptions based on my DIY experiences with the Terminator. One assumption is that air filtration is a very important part of an air bearing arm. And with the Terminator, the way to improve filtration is to increase the use of surge tanks. However, the more tanks / volume I add with definite SQ improvement, I had to change / increase the output of the pumps used. Given this assumption, I had thought that with high pressure LT arms, one way to improve SQ is also to increase air filtration / surge tanks. But that may require even higher pressure pumps...etc. At some point the pump pressure will be too large for safe home use. Am I wrong with my thinking on high pressure arms? @dover Obviously you are right that a captive bearing works best with higher pressure. I got a message back from Bruce T. He says that the lowest pressure to operate the ET2.5 is 3-5 psi. The higher the pressure the stiffer the bearing. I have one additional question and that is regarding pressure gauge. I see a lot of ET LT arm users place pressure gauges on the arm, right before the manifold. The reading on the gauge therefore reflects the pressure at the arm. However, I had thought that a gauge of any kind is also a disruptor of air flow. I place my gauge right after the pump, reading the pump pressure instead. And then allowing the surge tanks to perform their tasks down stream. Again, am I wrong in my thinking? Will a pressure gauge affect the air flow negatively?
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