Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?
Here's the initial press release for the Thales "Simplicity" tonearm(.pdf), a more practical approach "Tetragon Solution for tangential tracking". Looks interesting and will be cheaper than their other arms |
My Rockport TT replaced a Goldmund Reference with a T3F tonearm in which I had used a Clearaudio cartridge. Given that the T3F had destroyed, at least one Clearaudio due to lateral deflection, I was concerned that the Rockport arm might have the same problem. Andy explained that the real culprit in most instances of damage to the cartridge suspension is record warps. For this reason, the Rockport uses a vaccuum hold down. At this point, Andy was the distributor for the Vandenhul Grasshopper cartridges which had notorious suspension problems. Andy said that used in his TT, the life of the Grasshopper would be greatly extended (3X). Anecdotally, I bought a Grasshopper at the same time that I purchased the TT and never had a single problem with it. IMHO, a properly designed and executed tangential arm offers some real advantages over a pivoted arm. The problem is that most tangential arms have historically not been well designed or executed. Hope that this helps. |
