Has anyone had experience with the Schroeder Arm

The effective mass for frictionless suspended tonearm are different than friction tonearms (unipivot or gimball tonearm). The armtube for frictionless tonearm is much heavier so it can absorb stylus energy. This energy then dissipated by the string, silicone viscousity, or magnetic field. Medium and low compliance cartridges are better match for suspended tonearm like Well Tempered. If you can find how Mr. Well Tempered calculated effective mass then substitute magnetic flux for viscousity. It's basically a Bernoulli equation for energy conservation. The reason that string supported tonearm are more musical than ball bearing tonearm because string reasonates like guitar or violin string. We don't find many musical instruments made of ball bearings. At the Rocky Mountain Audio Quest, I tried to get Mr. Well Tempered to visit the Teres 360 and Shroder tonearm so he can kick himself for not including magnetic damping with his viscous damping tonearm patent. It took over 20 years for Frank to get a patent on it. Of course, magnetic is a little harder to see than liquid even though electrons flow like water.

Dear Nghiep: Truly educational post.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Before taking Raul seriously see this http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1097129745&openflup&56&4#56
I think he is right.

Tbg- You and Psych are right! Romy el Gato lives!

Hello Nghiep,
First of all, Mr. Well Tempered's name is Bill Firebaugh.
Secondly, you're off on a number of your assessments. The eff. mass of ,say, gimballed vs. suspended arms doesn't differ as implied in your post. It is the application of damping that alters Q and Fres. In the case of the Well Tempered Arm A LOT of damping is applied to allow for proper operation(=minimal displacement of the arm assembly as a result of groove drag). Since the Well Tempered Arm employs such a large amount of damping it has to be taken into account when calculating the expected Fres.
The string has NOTHING to do with a more "musical" sound of suspended arms. It allows for the construction of a chatter free bearing and next bto zero friction(+ zero stiction). It doesn't resonate in either of the arms.
It didn't take me 20 years to get a patent on my arm. In fact it only took the usual 2 years. And while I've been making string suspended tomearms since 1978, only when I turned it into a full time occupation I decided to protect my intellectual property(a very costly affair, I might add)
Besides that, anyone with an understanding of physics will realize that there are distict differences in the design of the two arms: application of antiskating force, distribution of mass, bearing rigidity vs. damping, versatilty. The last point brings me to another misconception. It is the eff. mass, not the bearing principle that determines the suitability of any arm for use with high compliance carts. I have customers running VERY high compl. carts(35cu+) and neither they nor I experienced any phenomenae that would indicate a mismatch.
"Electrons flow like water"? That's a nice school book analogy but doesn't reflect reality.

All the best,

Frank