New Schroeder linear tonearm, any thoughts?

Just think of the stylus to the armwand as a straight line and the stylus to the spindle another straight line and the two lines form an angle and as long as that angle always maintains 90° then it doesn't matter what the base is doing or whether the arm goes in an arc or not. And it will track tangentially. The same theory applies to the Thales tonearm, except it pivots at the headshell, whereas the Schroder has a fixed one with no offset angle. The Schroder does not use the Thales geometry but having an understanding of the Thales semi-circle will give you a better idea. The advantage of the Schroder and Thales tonearms is that they do not have to use linear bearings with its enormous horizontal mass. The Schroder also has advantage over the Thales of having little to almost no skating force, hence the absence of anti-skating adjustment.

Ingenious indeed!

Thales semi-circle

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Hiho, Thanks for the explanation. It is much clearer now. As long as that angle is 90 degrees, the stylus does not need to trace the radius of the LP. It is constantly hitting a different radius as the LP rotates which is why it is always tangent while a normal pivoting arm only hits two radii, (at the null points) during the entire side. That is why the arm base does not have to move that 5" or so. This arm is constantly adjusting.

The first video is a very good demonstration of the mechanism of the Schroeder. I had not previously realized that it's pivot swings in full view. I thought the working bearings were underneath, somehow. Fascinating and ingenious, because it's so obvious and simple.

Could not help notice the Abolare linestage, using two 12AU7s, my least favorite audio tube, and for only $32,500!!! I have never heard a 12AU7 I could love, and no linestage imaginable should cost that much. Sheesh. But I do like Rockport speakers and The Beat turntable.

Hi Peter no chatter and zero vibration, you can "hear" this in the stellar resolution this arm has. Other arms I had to remove damping troughs, fine vtf weights, anti skate mechanisms even finger lift b/c they chattered, rattled or colored the sound. The magnets keep the bearing in the underneath race centered in the race so they never touch unless your physically moving the arm by hand to its rest position.

Hope this explanation helps

Yes, I want one.
I wonder whether Frank Schroeder can create a base that would allow other tonearms to operate in the same manner. The problem would be that nearly every commercial tonearm has an offset headshell. The only production arm I know about that does not have an offset headshell is one of those Nottinghams. There are also a few with adjustable headshell offset angle. Still, if he could produce a base for $1500 or less, he would sell quite a few of them.