Great bass from a linear tracking arm?

Dear Exlibris: In my experience if you choose the right cartridge to match the tonearm you can have very good bass response ( everything the same in the system ) it does not matter if is pivoted or linear tracking.

Now, there are differences in the kind/level of bass in a linear traking and in a pivoted tonearms. In my experience, too, the best bass comes from the pivoted tonearms: solid, tight, no overhang, right pitch, etc, etc and as good the linear tracking are these ones are outperformed in that area for the pivoted ones.

I think that the mechanical grounding in the pivoted tonearms makes the difference against the air bearing linear tracking tonearms or the magnetic bearing on the Shoroeder one. Those air/magnetic bearing tonearms outperform the pivoted ones specially on the whole soundstage presentation.

Right now we are on a tonearm design ( and we want to build the best ever, this is our target: nothing less ) and we choose a pivoted one. I'm not saying that because of that the pivoted is the best, no the linear tracking ones have many advantages and as a fact we are on the research about too.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Rual, I take note of the fact that you say you want to build a (the best in your words) tone arm.

I was wondering what your opinion is on the bearing design. If you do go ahead with a pivoted tone arm design, which type of bearing are you would be considering? Also, would your design be influenced by any existing design?

I am asking because you have a good mix of designs in your collection and are very familiar with the differences in design.

Thanks
Paul

Dear Paul: That will be gimball or similar not unipivot. The design/build of a tonearm is far from be an easy task " there are a lot of black magic " there.

We are on the research on bearings, materials, geometry, resonance, vibration, balanced system, etc, etc. . In the next 2-3 months we will have our 2-3 first different prototypes that we have to test against other tonearms and with any cartridge we have at hand. These kind of work will be a very long time consuming before we will really sure where to go.

+++++ " (the best in your words) " +++++, like our Essential 3150 Phonolinepreamp design our target is that. We don't attemp to design/build something " only a little better ", our approach is the best one and the best one for all audio people. We don't know if we can achieve our very high targets about but we will try hard to meet those targets. We hope that God give us the strenght to be there to really help at the music/sound reproduction.
Like in the Essential 3150, we are designing with out any commercial or other kind of compromise, like always our compromise is the: MUSIC, nothing less.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Very good. Thanks to everyone for their responses.

After getting my ET2 arm dialed in on my VPI HW19 Mk3, with a little help from Bruce Thigpen (a benefit from living in Tallahassee),I find that the ET2 is delivering excellent bass response, and that's using a well broken-in AT-OC9, which is not at all a light cartridge at 7.8 grams. Also, I might add that the bass is much better now, as well as the overall presnetation, than with the same cartridge in my Linn Ittok arm/LP12 table.

If you have any doubts on what works and doesn't on air-bearing linear-tracking arms, send Bruce an email and I'm sure he can help you out. After all, he invented it and cousults to those who build them.