Schroder sq and the new talea

I think ( a risky word in this context...;-) ...) that Descartes phenomenal statement - which marked the awakening of the spirit of humanism - is not philosophy. It is much more. It is the self-recognition of the human spirit. Beyond knowledge. Beyond religion.

Not withstanding the pun, you have it exactly backwards. Thought is the product of the mind. But you are not your mind. Your mind is simply a tool, albeit one that tries to convince that you that it is you. When you experience this, perhaps it will be easier to understand.

IOW, it is possible to silence the mind with a simple technique, and simply Be.

So when you get that thought can be silenced and that consciousness remains, it is *then* that you experience the human spirit- yourself. This is not possible as long as the mind is not stilled.

To say "when thought is silenced is actual knowledge" is simply nonsense.

Canam, you and Dertonarm are on the same page here, but I would simply say that in order to know the truth of this, perhaps try it first. Eckhart Tolle has presented a simple method in his book 'The Power of Now'.

It is true that there has been a lot of philosophy presented here. You will find though that behind any great design is usually a guiding principle, which might be a vision or a philosophy. I am simply pointing out that if you can still the mind, the creative powers awaken and are 10 times more powerful. If you are to make a better arm, it seems like this might be useful.

Atmasphere, your position in these two matters is perfectly fine with me. But I do not have to agree - my position is different and - at least as far as I am concerned for good reason.
Back in the last days in german high school I encountered thoughts similar to the ones you posted above among some of my fellow schoolmates.
In the interim more than 3 decades have passed and my perspective as well as my awareness of things have changed and much to the better.
The great minds of the past were far less selfish then we are today. Most of the great human minds lived in times when authority and religion had an all-present impact on everyones life which none of us today can estimate (well - maybe some of the Taliban get an idea about it ....).
They created the thoughts we are musing about now from a distant and kind of irrational perspective.
I must admit that I feel much more comfortable with the "thoughts" of Canam, Nandric, Asa, Dgarretson to name a few here.
My driving force was and always will be the spirit of humanism ( NOT in the philanthropic sense ... ;-) ... ) which freed the human soul, lead to secularism and ultimately enabled man to live.

Dgarretson, it might be helpful to look at how a record is cut. A worm drive advances the cutter across the record- so to play back, it seems as if a linear tracking device will be needed, although there are some interesting approaches that use radial arm systems, like the Thales arm.

You have the issue of warps and bass- this means, to prevent variation in tracking pressure, that the arm bearings be in the same plane as the vinyl. When the bearings are above the LP surface, the tracking pressure will decrease with bass or warps.

The azimuth must not change during playback either. A gimbaled bearing will work for this and may not be the only means.

A short pivot will not work, as it forces the bearings to be above the LP surface, and makes for audible speed variation as warps are negotiated.

Air bearings don't seem to work either, as it will be seen that the more air pressure is used, the better they work. There are mechanical bearings that have no 'slop' or play in the bearings; play at this point is critical as any (even microscopic) movement is interpreted as a signal by the transducer. You want the motion of the needle to be paramount, without editorial by other parts of the system.

Now it will be seen by some that my comments might appear inflammatory to some. But I am simply outlining what appears to be needed. The digression of opinion is likely based on philosophy rather than anything tangible. That is how wide open the tone arm arena still is.

Though I appreciate the philosophy lesson and agree with Dertonarm that this is a very interesting discussion, I would like to ask a question about these two tonearms.

Forgive my naivete, but how can a unipivot arm with one bearing point maintain azimuth? I've seen magnets used to "stabilize" this rocking motion, but when I move a unipivot over from the armrest to the lead-in groove, the arm wobbles all over the place. Compared to my gimbaled-bearing arm, these seem very unstable. I've heard the Talea sound very good in a friend's system, but I don't understand how azimuth can't be changing constantly. What am I missing?

Atmasphere, I had in mind a short tangential headshell that instead of pivoting vertically to navigate warps, would rise and fall in parallel with the record surface via some sort of servo mechanism, possibly guided by a laser to measure the fluctuating distance between headshell and LP. I wouldn't rule out an air bearing. If the moving mass is kept light and of a design such as Ladegaard/Trans-Fi, the bearing actually works better at lightest feasible pressure. I'm not really trying to push one approach or another. It's more interesting to rank the key variables as a basis for trade-offs in design.