@audition__audio
In terms of tech and similarities between your arm and the CS Port I would guess the manufacturer told you this
Far from it. It does not take much for somebody with a science / engineering background to understand how most things work. As I see it, there are two big differences - but as I have never got my hands on a CS Port I could be wrong.
The Holbo has a tubular air bearing riding over a passive shaft. Air is fed into the bearing itself which is very efficient and only needs a very small airflow. The CS Port seems to have a half-tube bearing riding on a shaft which contains the air distribution ducting, so my guess is that most of the air is wasted. Bigger pump, more noise.
The other big difference is that the CS Port has a removable headshell. The headshell plus cartridge must have a mass of 20-grams or more (from CS Port’s website). Instead the Holbo has a solid platform to mount cartridges directly to the arm, which is obviously more rigid though less convenient than a removable headshell. The tonearm mass is just 31.6-grams which, together with the cartridge (say 7-grams), makes up the inertia that has to be moved sideways by the stylus to provide tracking.
If you search linear tracking arms one of the cons listed is the complexity of the arm as well as the significantly higher cost to manufacture
That's why the Holbo is a breakthrough product. In terms of materials and manufacturing costs, my take is that high precision CNC machines are the big secret. The Holbo makes use of a small number of components with simple shapes assembled into a brilliantly simple but highly functional design. The polar opposite of the Garrard 301. There apparently is more than one way to skin a cat.
