Why Linear Tracking never took off?

Kuzma now has a damping trough that is retrofittable to the Airline arm.

I've seen and heard the arm at CES. There is no way for me to make any sonic comparisons under those conditions. However, looking at the fit and finish of the air pump, filters, dehydrators, etc., the arm looks to be well engineered. A far cry from stuff like the old Mapenoll arm/table that gave me so much grief.

If you choose a cartridge carefully ,there is no way "damping"is an advantage.I have had this proven to me on numerous occassions and have finally caved in on this.By the way,Mikelavigne,I also had a room built (dedicated)with dedicated heat and a/c.Do you find the ambient temp.to run generally quite cool in winter?I have added an oil filled elec. heater to make sure the furnace doesn't run too much.

With regards to the Rockport arm,I wasn't aware it is marketed as a stand alone unit any longer,but, it obviously looks like a fine design.I had heard one on an early generation Rockport,some years back,but lacked the system intimacy,or knowledge,at that time to determine it's effectiveness,as compared to the generation of arms of that era.With Andy Payor's track record,it was probably wonderful.I do recall Roy Gregory arguing the SIGNIFICANT superiority of the new Kuzma arm(which I've never heard)over ALL previous competitors,including the Fantastic Air Tangent design,when he reviewed it about a year ago in HI-FI PLUS.

Sirspeedy, I'd have to disagree about the advantages of tonearm/cartridge damping. On well mastered and well engineered LPs (most frequently classical and well recorded jazz), I agree: I don't use any damping. But there are many LPs, particularly pop and rock, where a lot of high frequency hash is encoded in the record grooves adding an edginess and overall distortion that makes the record difficult to live with. On these "bad" sounding records, dialing in just a slight amount of damping (as the Walker Audio tt allows one to do, for example) often will clear up that high frequency edginess and make the record listenable. Add too much and you can over-deaden the sound; but when you find the Goldilocks point, you really hear it positively. I've salvaged "listenability" for a number of LPs that way.


www.6moons.com/audioreviews/walker4/sota_6.html
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I read:

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what was the rational behind their creation?
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IMHO:
-strive for zero tracking angle error; not really the case on most designs.
-low effective arm masses

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...Are there any good used tables to consider...
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Underrated, cheap and really good- sounding: Technics models like SL-5 SL-7 and SL10. Balanced designs IMHO.

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or is this design long gone?....
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Nononononono..... Njet! There are current models in the Clearaudio and Rauna (Swedish, next street) line:

http://www.rauna.com/

The rauna (once called "El Cheapo") tangential arms are like all Clearaudio Southern models passive tangentials: the goove delivers the movement- energy.

Still there are many tangantial freaks who have built copies of the famous Ladagaard's Air Arm, a tangential floating on a layer op compressed air.

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the simplicity of operation intrigues me...
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There is nothing more simple as a passive radial arm. Some tangentials are amazingly simple too. But most active models are not very simple in my point of view.

I own a lovely little Technics SL- J2. A cute capsulated quartz-DD active tangential player. The enclosure is not larger than a LP- sleeve!
Jan.