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Great bass from a linear tracking arm?

Is great bass and full, rich, mid-bass/upper-bass 'presence' possible from a linear tracking arm?

Is one brand better than the others in this regard:
Airtangent, Kuzma, Walker, ET, Cartridgeman, Forsell, Rockport, etc.?

Is it all just a matter of cartridge selection?
I'm told that an ultra-light cartridge in combination with a light linear tracking arm will produce the best bass.
exlibris
thomasheisig
568 posts
 
The UNIverse I have has the SB, I think, it is around 9 gr. A friend uses a Zyx 100 in his Air Line and he told me, it is very good (he owns a UNIverse, too), also a Transfiguration.
I think, weight is one point, but probably the siffness from the needle bearing the other. I saw a few pics with the airline, fitted with Benz LP, Kuzma Cartr., Transfiguration, Lyra Titan etc. So I guess, weight alone is not the secrtet.
piedpiper
753 posts
 
I just talked to Mr. Kuzma at CES and he is just now offering the ZYX cartridge line under his own name, without any changes to the cartridges or the prices.
brizonbiovizier
124 posts
 
Nope, I was just guessing as it doesnt have a body. It might well weigh a lot more. However I am using the older emt - not the titanium (which replaces some plastic parts with metal) so the titanium could be heavier. Is the zyx really half the weight of the emt?

EMT compliance is 15 micro m/mN

The AT bass was still pretty good - on a par with or better than many pivoted tonearms but nowhere near as good as the brinkmann arm. I would certainly revisit the AT with a higher pressur epump to see what effect that had.
exlibris OP
438 posts
 
The ZYX UNIverse without the silver base (SB) is 5.0 grams.
The compliance horizontal is 15 x 10-6 cm/dyne and the compliance vertical is 12 x 10-6 cm/dyne.

I'm not surprised that Kuzma is using the ZYX with his linear tracker. I 'did the math' (according to the formula at the VDH site) and both the ZYX Universe and the Airy 3, on paper at least, work great with that arm.

I think that the Airtangent may have a slighter lighter effective mass than the Kuzma which leads one to believe that an extremely light cartridge with a medium to high vertical compliance would work really well with it. Since we don't want the horizontal compliance to be too high (tail wagging dog) it is probably best to go for a really low mass cartridge to get the math, and the bass, to work out nicely.
cello
645 posts
 
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Great thread...Thanks All.
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Kuzma will not be able to sell the UNIverse. That model is sold exclusively by Sorasound.
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Rgds,
Larry
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