Julie, yeah and there was lots of misinformation! First of all, the first air-bearing tonearm was apparently designed by Infinity, the makers as well of the Black Widow tonearm, as well as speakers. From there, the design went on to Old Coloney, and eventually morphed into the Maplenoll air-bearing 'tables which Bruce Thigpen was involved in before he went on his own and designed the ET tonearms. As I wrote above, problems with the arm bottoming out at the end of a side can easily be taken care of by re-orienting the manifold inside the arm-block on Maplenolls and adjusting the air-ports via the hex-screws, which thereafter never have this problem. And in practice, MCs work very well in this rig, and I have used Grados and Deccas on it as well. So reports of difficulties concerning high lateral mass are simply not audible in practice, so this difficulty is exaggerated in the article and "out there" in general. As always, imporper set-up/understanding is to blame. Of course, MCs with low compliance do work best, but since the scene is currently dominated by such cartridges, then this is not a problem.
