Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

I have owned several linear tracking arms.

Air bearings don't work. I am sure all of you have noticed that the more pressure you put in the arm, the better it sounds. The problem is that there is a violation of a fundamental turntable design rule, which is this: for proper LP playback, there can be no bearing slop between the surface of the platter and the cantilever of the cartridge.

Air bearings by definition have bearing slop, and this is why they sound better as you add more pressure.

The other problem, already mentioned, is that due to the excessive lateral tracking mass, it is the cantilever of the cartridge that defines the tracking error **not the arm**! This is because the cantilever has to flex to move all that mass.

The result is that a good quality arm like a Triplanar or Phantom has lower tracking error than any air-bearing arm!

In order for a straight-tracker to actually do its job right, it cannot have any slop in any of its bearings. Linear tracks do exist that have no slop, so it would not be that hard to devise an arm that also has no slop, using a servo not unlike what the old Rabcos used (updated of course). Arms like that don't exist right now so for the time being, radial tracking arms rule the State of the Art roost.

Ralph, I suspect some of us currently using the Walker Audio
table and air bearing arm may disagree with you: no slop,
exceptional tracking, marvelous resolution and outstandingly
articulate bass reproduction. And, yes, I do very much like
and admire the Triplanar arm.

Overall, way too many generalizations in this thread, folks.
Albert got this right in his comments near the beginning, imo.
.

"Air bearings don't work" is quite a generalization. While I have only compared my Trans-Fi Pro to Graham 1.5tc & SME IV, I have no doubt that the Pro handily surpasses both of these pivot arms. To AtmaSphere's point, the Pro operates by design on low air pressure. A high-pressure bearing may propagate increased turbulence and vibration. This theoretical disadvantage may in turn off-set any theoretical advantage in tracking. Of course it is all about execution.

The Trans-Fi also allows shortening of arm wand length down to 1". While one can debate the theoretical advantage of a short wand, IME the audible improvement is easily detected down to the last 1/4" of adjustment. While a short wand may be considered an ancillary feature of a linear design, this feature is of great sonic significance and is obviously unavailable in a pivot arm.

Bravo Phil! What a well written post.

Geez Ralph, I didn't know my ET-2 couldn't work. Of course I don't believe it because the ears don't lie. One of these days I will buy a top notch pivoted arm and see if my opinon changes as to whether or not I still think linear tracking arms sound better. The first ET-2 arm I had which I bought brand new many years ago I used with a Van den Hull MC 10 cartridge. I used that cartridge for over 5 years and it still sounded great. One of the things I like about linear tracking arms is that I don't feel the sound quality changes as the arm travels across the record like it does with pivoted arms. The closer you get to the inner grooves with a pivoted arm, the less it sounds like the first couple of songs. I know some of this is attributable to how the grooves are cut on the inner part of the record, but you don't hear the same degree of change with a linear arm. And I attribute that to not having any distortion associated with the tracing error that you have with pivoted arms.

And Phil, you talk about linear arms not sounding "grounded" in comparison to pivoted arms. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? Until I can hear something better in my system, I just can't fault what I am hearing from my arm. The soundstage is wide, deep, and tall. The bottom end is something that has to be heard and if the recording has it, there is tons of air that you hear as both detail from cymbals as well as the air that is being cut by the other instruments. It sounds very much like 15 ips 2 track tapes that I play on my Otari MX-55 through a pair of Ampex 350 preamps. If a pivoted arm can trounce what I am hearing now, that would be very cool.

My experience with pivoted arms is way less than someone like Raul who has 3 turntables and 50 tonearms and 500 cartridges to play with. But then, I don't need 50 tonearms and 500 cartridges. I just need one table, one arm, and one good cartridge. I would drive myself to distraction otherwise and never find time to actually enjoy listening to music. Aside from all of the tables I have owned over the years that came with their own arms like Thorens and a Technics 1600 and too many other tables to list, the only pivoted arms that I have owned have been the Sumiko MMT, Rega RB-300, JMW 9, and JMW 10. Of those arms, the Sumiko MMT was my least favorite arm. I know that none of these arms are state of the art contenders, but the JMW 10 has garnished its share of good reviews. If I was going to be tempted to try another pivoted arm, it would probably be an SME V as I think its engineering and workmanship is superb.

Lastly, Phil-thanks for sharing your story with us. I really enjoyed it.