Why Linear Tracking never took off?

"Just as an fyi... The terms "tangential tracking" and "linear tracking" both are acceptable. Of the manufacturers of these arms over the years, B&O, Rabco, Marantz and others used the term "tangential tracking" and Eminent Technology, Air Tangent, Walker Audio, Clearaudio, Kuzma and others used the term "linear tracking." All the rest of us (and most reviewers) just used the terms interchangeably."

Be that as it may and regardless of who used what, conceptually these arms are attempting to maintain a proper tangential relationship to the groove all the way across the record rather than at just two points. Michael Fremer mentioned this in one of his recent articles. In his opinion and mine, linear is a misnomer. YMMV

Willster...Your PS X800 is obviously broken. This happens to the best of equipment after 25 years. How it sounds probably has more to do with the pickup used. Most of the time mine was used with a Shure V15MR, and that particular pickup never sounded, or tracked, better. If you have given up on this TT you should sell it. You might be surprised what they sell for.

I go back an forth on such design. I think the servo system is not as bad as what people might think. It can sound excellent. My Yamaha PX2 is one great performer.

I got my first linear tracker, a Garrard Zero-100, in 1974. When I first saw their ad I thought they had the Holy Grail. After getting the machine, I wished dearly for 2 things: that it was manual operation from the ground up, and that they had spent the money on the articulation. The arm would not track for beans!

A year later I found a Rabco ST-7 mounted on a Technics 1100 table, so it was the world's first straight tracker (the Rabco was built in 1968) on the world's first direct-drive table.

I had the Rabco until about 1989. It got heavily modified- carbon fiber arm, a much-updated servo control that worked really well (the arm was famous for skipping or lifting off the LP due to servo malfunction- their original 'servo' was a joke), modified counterweight and modified track.

I replaced is with an SME V and was a lot happier... but I have often thought about how to sort out the arm's weaknesses since. There is a company called THK that makes motion tracks that have no bearing slop, that integrated with more modern bearing designs and an LED activated servo would result in a world-class arm.

IMO/IME none of the air-bearing arms work very well as often they have more tracking angle issues than a good radial tracking arm due to flex in the cantilever of the cartridge.

I am glad I had my Rabco when I did- it did very well on the inner 1/3 of the LP so my records from that time are intact.