Great responses by all above. Of course it's important to note they're all talking about arms that cost far more than most pivoted arms (more than most complete vinyl rigs actually).
I haven't had the pleasure of working with a top level linear tracker, but I did own two of those Rabcos back in the day. Even those, crude as they were, were ridiculously easy to set up. Sonically they were at least the equal of similarly priced pivoting arms I had. Unlike everyone else on the planet, I never had a lick of trouble with either of them. I still have the ST-8 and it works fine.
My (pivoting) TriPlanar arm costs more than those Rabcos, the tables they were mounted on and all the cartridges I ever used with them put together. Is it better? Well, of course. In fact it's phenomenally better since, as noted above, any arm requires good execution and setup. But even with this marvelously adjustable device and plenty of experience, I can't dial in a strange cartridge in much less than 25 minutes, and a really good setup takes longer.
I haven't had the pleasure of working with a top level linear tracker, but I did own two of those Rabcos back in the day. Even those, crude as they were, were ridiculously easy to set up. Sonically they were at least the equal of similarly priced pivoting arms I had. Unlike everyone else on the planet, I never had a lick of trouble with either of them. I still have the ST-8 and it works fine.
My (pivoting) TriPlanar arm costs more than those Rabcos, the tables they were mounted on and all the cartridges I ever used with them put together. Is it better? Well, of course. In fact it's phenomenally better since, as noted above, any arm requires good execution and setup. But even with this marvelously adjustable device and plenty of experience, I can't dial in a strange cartridge in much less than 25 minutes, and a really good setup takes longer.