Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

I was about to raise question that DarkMo just did.

"In the case of lateral force issues mentioned about linear arms, is this more a of mechanical/longevity concern or one of noticeable sonics, too? "

I think the discussion somehow got steered towards lateral force comparison and stress on cartridge etc. Which does not mean linear arm are inferior performer.

I also think original poster gave in too soon. I happen to believe that the linear arm are 'overall' superior performer. In my experience ( again I have not had top notch pivot arms in my TT set up at the same time with same cartridge (it would be definitive experiment though, like Darkmoebius suggests) but I do have other two TT set ups with pivot arms and I have optimized these two to death but still, in terms of completeness of notes and air around it as well as center of earth bass ( when present) sets its self apart from the other two TTs. Stand alone the other two TTs sound real good. It is only when you play back to back, the completeness of natural sound reproduction with linear arm is without a doubt 'better' in many ways.

I do agree that lateral force and stress issue are legible concerns. But I tend to Clean the linear travel rod more often to reduce friction.

Mepearson, I forgot to put a smiley face (;-))at the end of my sentence saying you gave up too early. I did realize that you wanted to try out what you said top notch pivot arms. That IS indeed open minded. In fact, I have plans to install another arm (Triplanar, most likely) with hopefully same cartridge in near future to just expand my horizons- so to speak.

Thanks to 213cobra for better describing sound quality reproduced by linear arm. "....snapped everything into sonic focus that you didn't realize was available until you heard it." " ..also present the 3D soundspace more vividly". What I would like to add further s that organic quality of acoustic space it portrays to make the whole stage as one- one instrument space clearly overlapping each other to make one whole stage, and more sound air propulsing out as a live instrument would. You can 'peak or hear' in the middle of the tone 'thickness' to hear what texture is in between- if it makes any sense. I guess I described it earlier as 'completeness - tone, texture, air lower and higher harmonics - of notes'. It is still hard to describe until you hear it, but may be I described it succinctly enough? Not that pivotal arms don't do this, they do, sure, but linear arm does convincingly more.

Pivotal arms just looks great, they are in vogue and are just more impressive to possess. Wish list- Triplanar, Graham Phantom, Davinci Grandezza, SME V

One unique thing I just realized about linear tonearm is that I find myself cleaning the needle a lot compared to (if ever!) my other two set ups with pivot arms.

This may mean that linear arm has perfect snug contact vs pivot arms hence picking up more RIGHT info (and more dirt) indicating better performance?

Anyone else with linear tone arm experienced this?

Thales tonearm, looks like a very ingenious design indeed. Thanks Darkmo and Hiho. I will have to add this one to my wish list.

Dgarretson, well said. Comparison should be on level set baseline, not an anomalous situation of off center and warped records. My tone arm indeed has 1-2" wand exhibiting extremely low resonance

Let us not forget that pivot arm also has friction (owing to slow tracking speed, this is static and not dynamic coefficient of friction) at the bearing and due to this friction the arm would also have "+/- X force" (x force normal to the pivot arm longitudinal axis). This is in addition to the y component working along axis of the arm. Any ME or SE can draw a simple free body diagram to balance primary force vectors.

Your intuition would tell you that this force would be lower than that in the linear arms, but it depends. It depends on the effective static mass at the friction interface- longer and heavier the arm, greater the friction force. Thus longer and heavier arms with mechanical pivot/bearing may have higher friction force than say shorter wand on linear arm with mechanical 'sliding friction' bearing.( an air bearing would even be further lower)

Of course, we are talking about a small force values here- tenth of grams. milli grams or even micro grams of friction force depending upon the arm mass etc.

It would be good to know how and what design load s cartridges (the stylus, suspension and suspension to cartridge body interface) and are designed at. Static and dynamic loads. Naturally owing to the function of cartridge, the stylus and the rest of the 'structure' would be designed with cantilever beam loading idealization and thus would have certain design capability (static and cyclic based fatigue) in both x and y directions (and of course the z direction) to be be able to withstand x and y load induced during tracking wavy grooves.

So without looking at hard numbers on free body with two samples of linear and pivot arms it is hard to say which one has more x (excessive damaging forces). I tend to think air bearing linear arm would be approaching (Or even lower than) light weight pivot arm.

Rather than generalization, I would like to see free body force values for a set up compared with cartridge design values (both static and fatigue(-number of cycles- I bet you cart manufacturers should have this)

Until then the real life experiences are good indication to base the 'judgement' on. And we do have experiences from both camp.

Agreed, Dgarretson!

Dertonearm, good point on the short lever and VTA/VTF changes when tracked over a warped record. Mine does dance up and down and side to side when I play with my short levered linear arm. It is a sight to admire and be amazed that inspite of more than normal visible movement of the stylus. the sound rarely changes its tone and pace. The reason is yes, it does have excessive amplitude as compared to longer linear arms or pivot arms, but the amplitude frequency is also higher and relatively fast, so as to be the effect less noticeable (hear). At least that is what i have found.

Another plus, IME, for linear arms ( that hasn't been talked about) is that they are able to track more readily than the pivot arms in case of playing a record with very low freq content (examples- techno music- Deepchord, Pole, Luciano, Patha du Prince,etc). This may be unique to my set ups. Let others chime in here.

Look, we all agree that there are pro and cons in both arm designs, but with all being equal, not extreme condition/s of using warped record, linear arm still has overall advantage of 'complete' tracking fidelity than the pivot arms and hence superior performance advantage and I think this is what this thread is about. You just have to listen both (good examples well set up with same cart, phono cable, phono) back to back to realize.

I think it is time to get handle on this tracking error (info reading loss) we all are talking about with pivot arms. Has anybody done 3D geometric study to quantify the tracking error with pivot arms. I mean which part of the info are we loosing? left channel error, right channel error, what is the content we are missing?