Why Linear Tracking never took off?
Just as an fyi... The terms "tangential tracking" and "linear tracking" both are acceptable. Of the manufacturers of these arms over the years, B&O, Rabco, Marantz and others used the term "tangential tracking" and Eminent Technology, Air Tangent, Walker Audio, Clearaudio, Kuzma and others used the term "linear tracking." All the rest of us (and most reviewers) just used the terms interchangeably. . |
Sirspeedy, I'd have to disagree about the advantages of tonearm/cartridge damping. On well mastered and well engineered LPs (most frequently classical and well recorded jazz), I agree: I don't use any damping. But there are many LPs, particularly pop and rock, where a lot of high frequency hash is encoded in the record grooves adding an edginess and overall distortion that makes the record difficult to live with. On these "bad" sounding records, dialing in just a slight amount of damping (as the Walker Audio tt allows one to do, for example) often will clear up that high frequency edginess and make the record listenable. Add too much and you can over-deaden the sound; but when you find the Goldilocks point, you really hear it positively. I've salvaged "listenability" for a number of LPs that way.  www.6moons.com/audioreviews/walker4/sota_6.html . |
