Linear Tracking Turntables - Best??


Entertaining the idea of acquiring a linear tracking turntable. Which was condidered the most sota. Ease of set up and maintenace is a prerequsite. Most I have talked with,say linear only way to go. OK AUDIOGON MEMBERS ITS YOUR TURN. Convince me one way or the other
ferrari
I have used a VPI JMW 10, since 2000 (after SME’s, Triplanars and many others). Properly setup (which few owners seem to get) I have never heard inner groove distortion, or any harshness, on any of my 2000 Lps. That is just my experience, YMMV. Once setup it needs almost no adjustment. I can also can swap arm tubes with different cartridges, after a quick SRA and VTF adjustment. Turntables do not have multiple straight tracker arms.

The straight trackers are not my cup of tea.

I always wonder how does the straight tracker keep equal sidewall groove force, throughout the side, when groove spacing varies, across the Lp? You can not run the arm horizontally at a constant speed. How do they vary the speed, with groove spacing? This is audible. Also if the cartridge is misaligned, it’s off throughout the entire Lp side, and never correct.
It's up to the user the correct cartridge alignment.
However it is very easy and not comparable with pivoted arms.

The cartridge always drives the arm. This apply to linear arms also!

 All of the vintage linear trackers like yamaha px1,2,3 or pioneer pl-l1, pl-l1000 have detachable headshell once you've mention the quick cartridge swap.

 As a bonus plus, all of them are direct drives using a technology which the present manufactures cannot even dreamt. These turntables are icons of the true research & development and no one can imagine the todays production cost if ... 

 But lets get real.
 We are in 2016 where people don't sweat for their living and all the funds going to maketing, deceptive claims, ads, image makers and corrupted magazines or blog reviewers.

 Unfortunatelly the research has stopped at '80s when the Japanese giants have faced the digital trend of the wealthies.

Donc55 that's why the only ones I would use are the air bearing ones. 
Atmasphere the ET2 can be set with the bearing at the level of the LP.  
The ET is also stupidly well priced for what it is.  SOTA for under 1K used.  I think it's because a lot of people are afraid of it. And no it does not require constant adjustment. Once set it stays that way. 
What Atmasphere is talking about is discussed at length on several other strings. Having the lowest possible mass really helps this phenomena. i modified my apollo arm (was originally modified by Lloyd Walker to a light weight ceramic) with a carbon fiber headshell, arm wand and using a UNIverse II which is a very light cartridge. The mass is substantially less as a result and the performance is very good. Bass response is not a problem and even with pretty violent passages, i do not have an issue with tracking. The apollo arm is a very short arm compared to many others hence the need for a vacuum to ensure record is flat against the platter. There was another turntable (i think an older vyger line) that was even a lighter set up as the cartridge was directly mounted to the air spindle with no arm to speak of. 
For a long time i did not believe the issue of mass but after watching set up on my older ariadne with the bulky set up maplenoll originally had, i saw exactly what he is discussing. I never damaged my cartridge but the movement was definately there especially on a record whose center hole is slightly off. That is when i started modifying arms to remove weight. 
That being said, i really like the airbearing arms and the magic they produce with a high mass turntable like the Maplenoll or Walker tables
Oilmanmojo  

The ET2 has adjustable effective mass as part of its design. As Analogluvr knows, experienced owners know to set it up for highest vertical inertia.
This is well documented in the Et2 manual (Page 9) and the ET2 thread.

fwiw from this thread's perspective and comments from Atmasphere.

His experiences with the ET2 are documented on AudioGon here.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/are-linear-tracking-arms-better-than-pivoted-arms/post?postid...

Atmasphere
Later I had an ET but after eating a few cantilevers, I ditched it. Obviously I had the wrong cartridges in it; you could sit can watch the cantilever move back and forth as the arm tried to negotiate the LP. If you have ever seen the arm 'wobble' you know what I am talking about.


@Atmasphere

From my personal experiences, No, not wrong cartridges - just set up wrong. In this case it appears from your comments that it was 1) improper set up and 2) severely eccentric records.

Page 47 - ET2 manual.

If you like to play severely eccentric records, ones with run out greater than 1/8th of an inch, then we suggest you use a low mass pivoted arm

From a cartridge end I have gone as high as 50cms/dyne x 10-6 with no issues with proper setup on an ET2.

Air Bearing linear trackers will always have higher horizontal mass. I don't know one audiophile that plays severely eccentric records. I mean Audibly what's the use. Unless you want to carve out the hole a bit and use a center weight. That's getting pretty anal !  but maybe it's a special record. 

Happy Listening.