Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

Cjfrbw, with all due respect, nonesense! As we expose our ears to more and more live, "real" music, we develop a deeper and deeper understanding of the obvious, and not so obvious traits of music performed live. A comparison to how a piece of electronic equipment is able to express any given trait becomes easier and easier. Most audiophiles are, unfortunately, in the dark about a lot of this. Even a lot of the reviewers (if talk about them we must) who claim to use the sound of live music as a reference fall way short. One very common (and pathetic) observation has always been something to the effect that XYZ component allows the listener to differentiate between, say, an oboe from an English horn. How pathetic can one get. I suggest that if a listener is not able to differentiate the sound of an oboe from an English horn while listening to Muzak pumped through a $3 speaker at the local Walmart, the main problem is not the speaker's lack of fidelity, but rather, the listener's lack of exposure to the sound of the two instruments. Would that same listener not be able to recognize the sound of his or her spouse played back over the same speaker?

i think every 'school of preference' within the hobby can claim some turf in the reality sweepstakes....depending on one's personal tastes and musical genre tendancies. gosh; you have the ultra low wattage/horn guys, the mid-power tube guys, the big speaker big ss amp guys and other groups such as the Quads, or appogees, the MBL's or whatever.

aspects of live music are evidant to one degree or another in each 'school'.....but it's the synergy of a system including sources and complimentary software which determine the degree of success at approaching reality of reproduction.....and then....there is the room.

with all those varibles....how in the hell can someone say who is on the right path and who is not without actually spending time in their system?

it's one thing to try to describe what our goals might or should be as listeners. it's a whole different thing to judge someone else's system as 'not valid' or 'they'

'forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. Fidelity is irrelevant to music.'

I disagree with both Syntaz and Frogman. I hardly believe there is "no hope" left for High End audio. And Frogman, I think you have the subjectivist argument reversed. I think there are far too many people who will believe anything versus people who only believe what measurements tell them. What we need is a balance of art and science and we do have companies that are trying to achieve that balance.

It is my opinion that pretty much everyone who is involved in the design/manufacturing of high-end gear is standing on the shoulders of giants. When you look at the wealth of knowledge that existed in tube electronics just in this country alone over 60 years ago it is humbling. When you realize how many companies are basically just recycling old schematics into "new" products, it makes you appreciate the great engineers of the past and what they have given us.

I find it interesting that we are seeing a revival in very old gear that was cast aside in our march to progress. Witness the Garrard 301 and the Thorens TD124 and even the much newer Technics SP 10 family. SPU cartridges are still being made. Some people never stopped listening to horns and SETs. If someone could find a way to manufacture R2R tapes at a reasonable cost, there would be a much bigger boom in that market than the tiny rumble we are seeing now.

I know some people will argue this point, but I think the most progress that is being made today in the high-end is not with electronics, tonearms, turntables, etc. The most progress is being made with speakers and their enclosures. There is far more science being brought to bear on speaker design today and there already existed a vast body of knowledge.

Once I accepted the argument that what was desired in reproduction was a straight wire with gain. Such a system would let one hear what the "recording engineer" intended.
I have many years experience performing, especially liturgical music. I also play the acoustic guitar. When I worked in a recording studio, the engineer would invite the conductor and/or soloist to listen to the various takes and express their preference. This was always an exercise in diplomacy, because the engineer always ignored their input. He listened with headphones or with his ears fairly close to the huge A7 monitors- far to close for them to properly integrate. If asked, he would say he was trying to get the sound to "match" his previous recordings that had "cut well" when sent off to the engineers who practiced that black art.
The last thing I want is to hear is a violin or a voice on an A7 up close! Yet many of these fifty year old recordings are thought to be among the best ever recorded and are reissued on every new format.
There are various conclusions one can draw from this information, but I opine that we all listen around the defects in our playback equipment like the engineer listened around his. We adjust our systems until they "sound right".

The "absolute sound" guys are like the celebrity gossips who claim to know what celebrities are thinking and feeling, without the celebrities themselves chiming in to say what is really going on. Exquisite BS.
The "absolute sound" implies that a listener goes to live music, has a perfect tape recorder in his/her head that allows perfect recovery of the original event, then can perfectly compare it with a reproduction, without consulting the original musician who performed the piece who actually knows the sound of his/her own instrument for comparison.
I would imagine most musicians would find an "absolute sound" type critic pretty laughable. I imagine that Brad Pitt or Angenlina Jolie would react in dismay at the typical gossip monger claiming to know their thoughts, feelings and intentions.
You hear musicians all the time who lament that recorded sound never captures the essential character of their instruments. Even head bangers are upset when their ripping, tearing, metallic chaos is improperly rendered by recorded sources. A musician who has a good idea of what his own instrument is supposed to sound like, may not have a very good idea of what everybody else's instruments are supposed to sound like.
Add to this mystery the spices added by the engineers of the recording booth, then the "absolute sound" critic is engaging a solipsistic pretense that a particular individual can discern any kind of "absolute sound".
It may be easy to distinguish the sound of a Yamaha piano from a Steinway from a recorded source, but that doesn't mean that a recording sounds like either absolute instrument.
Many "absolute sound" guys tend to go to live performances of classical music, and then decide that because they have elevated sensibilities by doing so, they then are on a higher plane when judging stereo systems and components.
The best stereo system for rendering the sound of an oboe might be a pair of oboe shaped speakers. Those speakers might be incredibly dismal at portraying any other kind of music, or hopeless at portraying groups of musicians in space.
So whether the "absolute sound" exists as a theoretical construct, the barriers to attaining such a condition are so relentlessly unfavorable that those who claim this skill are more in the category of the "smug delusional" than the "absolute sound."