Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

Frogman, Your experience with ET2 surpassing SME V mirrors mine with Trans-Fi Pro vs. SME IV. As regards stylus deflection, when a linear air arm is used with a high-compliance cartridge, rather than shoot for perfect level I position the manifold so as to eliminate bias in stylus deflection during play as viewed through a magnifier. It might be that in this position the manifold is actually at a miniscule downward tilt toward the spindle, allowing gravity to work in ones favor and relieve torque on the stylus.

Agree with Samujohn and would extend his point by suggesting that ease of use and repeatability of results is an important consideration. In this regard (some) linear arms are a piece of cake relative to pivot arms. Perhaps any arm over $5K should come with a boxed homunculus to set it up.

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?

Frogman, I do rather choose physical and technical facts in audio discussion, as sonic impressions are purely individual and can't be transferred nor put into correct perspective.
Unless you were familiar with me as a person, my taste, opinions, background, preferences in sound and sound reproduction - my personal impressions and statements of the sonic virtues of a given component are just blank phrases to you or anybody else.
However - I too take the ET 2 (and especially the ET 2.5 ) any day heads above the SME V.
The ET2 was always THE best buy among linear tonearms in specific.
But the sonic difference between the two tonearms is not a difference between pivot vs linear. The impression that many audiophile experienced with the SME V ( kind of dull, live-less sound with an over-prominent upper bass ) has to do with its very design and a few construction details which added up to an unhappy marriage.
Anyway - exchange of opinions is - if not fortified by empirical (and thats the virtue of physics and technical aspects..) arguments which at least can be verified and re-verified by others.

________________________________

I haven't gone through and read all the posts so I might have missed some similar thoughts and sounding repetitive. In theory a linear tracker simulate the tangency of the record cutter but one must remember a cutter is an ACTIVE device, it forces a straight line across the record in order to cut a record but a linear tracking arm is a PASSIVE device that is tracking in the mercy of the record groove with its angles and turns! In real world tracking, most center holes on records are not absolutely centered, very often few millimeters off! Bam, there goes tangency out the window.

As one commenter points out tangency is based on the cantilever - shape of the stylus tip too if you want to be anal about it - in relation to the groove NOT the arm. Bear in mind the cantilever is attached to rubber, hence a compliant system! So imagine the cantilever is constantly navigating with side force of the off center record thrusting it laterally banging on left and right and you tell me if that's perfect tangency or not! Of course the perfect table for a linear tracking arm to work on would be something like the Nakamichi Dragon or TX1000 that self corrects off center record hole but how many people have a table like that?

I think the reason people prefer the sound of linear tracker over pivot arm is that tracking error is still lower than many pivot arms, especially the shorter one that's not optimized in overhang and anti-skating adjustment. I don't have problem with people preferring linear tracker over pivot but just don't be so militant about it and keep insist on telling me linear trackers have perfect tangency! It does not! It's still a compromise and so is life. To me all the fiddling is distracting me from playing record but your mileage may vary of course.

I mean, just think about it, a stylus is attached to a cantilever and then attached to rubber and then attach to an arm and then attach to a counterweight all the way at the end and you expect the geometry to be perfectly tangent through out playing one side of a record for 20 minutes straight? We know how dramatic the overhang is off by one millimeter can sound with pivot arms so imagine a record with a one millimeter off-centered hole, not uncommon, played with a linear tracker. Perfect tangency? NOT!

Anyway, I used to have problem with servo pseuso-linear tracking arms because the obvious objection to the constant self correcting nature of its design but crabbing across the record with tiny arcs but I have since come to appreciate it more because it's much less stressful on the cantilever and stylus and navigate the groove much easier in REAL WORLD situation. It's really a pivot arm with a uni-directional gliding base, if that helps the mental picture. (uni-direction in typical designs not counting Pioneer's PL-L1000 bi-directional arm) The problem with the sound of many servo design is not the concept but the execution and many don't use good bearings and if look at it as a pivot arm it's no where near the quality of top notch arms like the Graham, Triaplanar, SME V, etc... I have a Yamaha PX-2 and it works wonderfully and it's better than many servo arm in its mechanical quality. Of course not in the league of top notch pivot arms but the lessening of tracking error (not perfect tangency) does pay dividend. So I hope in the future, someone can design a "servo tonearm mounting base" that allows one to mount any pivot arm that can servo control the base's lateral movement to lessen tracking distortion (lessen not eliminate) Wouldn't that be something cool? Hell, if I mount a 12" arm on such device the tracking error would be so low to not even worry about such a thing!

I forgot the mention another solution such as the Thales arm that is a combination of pivot and linear tracker by self adjust to tangency in a PASSIVE system. Very clever indeed. But the only problem I can think of is that by adding another pivot right above the cartridge might affect the structural integral of the arm and having extra linkage might hinder its fluid movement. Again, nothing is perfect but I can at least appreciate the innovation. Bravo!

Speaking of 12", I honestly thing a 12" arm makes sense unless you are in the rigidity is everything crowd. There's no perfect arm and I can accept that just like life and a well desing 12" seems to be a good compromise.

At the end of the day, I just want to play some tunes and not worry about whether the damn needle is tangent or not. That's it for now.

___________________

Cutting lathe/cutting head can not be compared to a linear tonearm at all.
A cutting head is not tracking a groove.
It is engraving it into a virgin vinyl. Thats why its active. It doesn't care for the groove margin - it literally creates it.

There are 12" tonearms out there which do feature a rigidity in both their armpipe and bearing which is the equal to the very best 9 and 10" tonearms.