Experience With Linear Tracking Turntables

Dover wrote:

"the damage done to cartridges from incorrect anti skate is massive - I reckon 80% plus of cartridges on pivoted arms end up with skewed cantilevers within a year or 2."

'If you work with cartridge manufacturers and rebuilders a lot, as I have, they can see uneven wear on the stylus within a few months from new."

These are two very different statements.  I agree with the second one.  The first one, not so much.  I have to moderate what I wrote last night because it implies more than is accurate.  While it is true that I set up turntables frequently and have done so for decades, it is not correct to imply that I am seeing many at all for the first time after much use.  Most of what I see are repeats that I have set up myself, again and again.  Accordingly, the incident rate for seeing poor outcomes due to set up problems are approaching zero.  Rare issues involve things like the occasional mishap due to an over enthusiastic cleaning lady or an out of bounds grandchild do occur. Conclusions cannot be drawn from such one offs.  So it would be wrong to draw too many conclusions from my experience.  But back to your two statements above.  It should be stated that the down side to opting to use of either no or too little AS is that uneven wear of the stylus is a real possibility.  I am using 0 AS on my HW-40 with a Hyperion and monitoring it very closely.  I use a Wild-Heerbrugg M5 microscope to see very clearly how the stylus is wearing.  I also am monitoring tracking performance using the software AnalogMagik.  Between the two I should be able to pick up deterioration fairly early.

To return to the original OP's question (...ahem):

I have used the Eminent Technology air-bearing ET-2 tonearm with 4 different cartridges over the past 35 yrs. or so.  I would not recommend inferior linear-tracking turntables, but a high-end, air-bearing, linear-tracking tonearm can be quite satisfactory.  The ET-2 is a pain to set up, especially setting the tracking force.  You also have to have your turntable perfectly level for best results.  Your choice of cartridges is somewhat limited because of its high horizontal mass.  But with a compatible cartridge, it works superbly.  I don't have experience with other linear-tracking arms.  I've had no urge to change tonearms or my SOTA Star Sapphire turntable.

I owned the original Souther Linear Arm in the80’s & in fact went to Lou’s house in MA & saw his whole set up. It first was on a VPI & then a Sota  Sapphire. It could sound very good but setting & aligning it were a real pain as anyone one change affected every other parameter! 
 

Clearaudio bought his patents years ago & I believe still offer a pricey version of the arm.

i opted to go for a Basis w/ an SME arm which has since been replaced by a Basis arm many years ago now. It still sounds excellent w/ a good record & while different than my digital stuff( Innuos/ Bricasti), is equally enjoyable. 

There is a good argument for high effective mass in the horizontal plane. Bass frequencies predominantly elicit horizontal movement of the cantilever. If the tonearm has low effective mass in the horizontal plane, it is conceivable this would cause sufficiently high SPLs of bass to displace the pivot from side to side. So you might want high effective horizontal mass to avoid a situation where the tail (the cantilever) wags the dog (the pivot).  Several Japanese manufacturers must think this is sound reasoning, because several Japanese pivoted tonearms employ devices to increase horizontal effective mass.  Those outriggers you see on Moerch tonearms are a case in point (even though Moerch is not Japanese).  The Dynavector tonearms that not only have high horizontal effective mass but also use magnetic damping at the pivot in the the horizontal plane, are a Japanese example.