Interesting site

[Rust]

Was perusing the web yet again, found an interesting English site with an interesting topic.

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-films/analogue-watch-a-trailer-for-our-new-film-series-featuring-matthew-herbert-stephen-morris-more/

[Rust]

Or how about this. I don't know how well it works, but the concept is intriguing, and it's about as simple in execution as imaginable.

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/amateur-inventor-develops-new-tonearm-to-tackle-vinyl-distortion/

[MylesBAstor]

Or how about this. I don't know how well it works, but the concept is intriguing, and it's about as simple in execution as imaginable.

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl...yl-distortion/

Hardly new and not without it's own set of issues. See Lou Souther and then the arm design was bought by Clearaudio. That[s the problem with linear tracking arm: great in theory but extremely hard to implement. Can't believe he actually got a patent on that design. Love to know what the horizontal mass of that sucker is.

[Rust]

Myles - I'm aware of the Souther/Clearaudio tone arm. What struck me about this arm was the simplicity of the design.Granted, the horizontal mass as shown has to be high, but a precision tilting means like some current linear trackers could address much of that, lowering effective horizontal mass. It would be bad on a record with an off center hole though, with a mechanical bias towards the center of the record..

Still, the simplicity of the arm would make for an interesting hobby project. Just two balls. Wonder how the latest ceramics would work.

[MylesBAstor]

Myles - I'm aware of the Souther/Clearaudio tone arm. What struck me about this arm was the simplicity of the design.Granted, the horizontal mass as shown has to be high, but a precision tilting means like some current linear trackers could address much of that, lowering effective horizontal mass. It would be bad on a record with an off center hole though, with a mechanical bias towards the center of the record..

Still, the simplicity of the arm would make for an interesting hobby project. Just two balls. Wonder how the latest ceramics would work.

Horizontal mass = stress on cantilever assembly. Also how well does the arm manintain tangency, not stick with a little dirt and like most bearing arms have to be tilted to move meaning that the azimuth is never right. Also that arm looked like he had no idea about VTA/SRA. And chatter and energy storage, etc.

[Rust]

I view it as an intellectual exercise. Azimuth would seem easy to compensate for with an adjustable headshell or tonearm clamp. SRA with a severe stylus profile would be more problematic tracking across the record as the height of the pivot point of the tonearm would change with travel. Chatter could at least be partially addressed by very high levels of surface finish on the order of 40 ROR or better but would probably need some other form of help. Energy storage, much like any traditional arm, judicious choice of materials and dampening.

Stiffness while making the traveling beam as light as light as possible is a sticking point. The parts have to be metal because there is no way to obtain the level of surface finish that would be required with any other material.

I can't say any of that would translate into a viable tonearm, but it is interesting.

[MylesBAstor]

I view it as an intellectual exercise. Azimuth would seem easy to compensate for with an adjustable headshell or tonearm clamp. SRA with a severe stylus profile would be more problematic tracking across the record as the height of the pivot point of the tonearm would change with travel. Chatter could at least be partially addressed by very high levels of surface finish on the order of 40 ROR or better but would probably need some other form of help. Energy storage, much like any traditional arm, judicious choice of materials and dampening.

Stiffness while making the traveling beam as light as light as possible is a sticking point. The parts have to be metal because there is no way to obtain the level of surface finish that would be required with any other material.

I can't say any of that would translate into a viable tonearm, but it is interesting.

But would the amount of azimuth compensation be the same at the inner and outer parts of the album?

Nothing against the arm specifically but just think the linear trackers are an exercise in frustration. As I said theory rarely meets reality.

[Rust]

Myles - I considered the azimuth issue a bit more. If the geometry is correct, azimuth would change minimally if at all tracking across the record. One potential problem is that as the cartridge tracks, the amount of compensation for effective horizontal mass would have to change slightly as the speed of tracking across the record changed. Might only take a few arc seconds geometry wise.

SRA is another matter as there would have to be some tilt to the assembly to lower effective mass in the horizontal plane. The amount of change in SRA across the record would depend on the amount of tilt and tone arm length. The effect would be less noticeable with a spherical tip but increasingly noticeable as tip profiles become more severe.

Problematic indeed. Trading tracking error for other issues. Well, if it were simple, the perfect tonearm would have already have been developed. It does make a nice thought exercise. Precise control of dimensions, materials, surface finishes, mass, geometry, friction. If there was an effective way of applying bias to the entire travel without tilt many problems would be eliminated. I can think of several mechanical methods, but the forces involved would be so small that friction becomes a sticking point (pun intended).

[MylesBAstor]

Myles - I considered the azimuth issue a bit more. If the geometry is correct, azimuth would change minimally if at all tracking across the record. One potential problem is that as the cartridge tracks, the amount of compensation for effective horizontal mass would have to change slightly as the speed of tracking across the record changed. Might only take a few arc seconds geometry wise.

SRA is another matter as there would have to be some tilt to the assembly to lower effective mass in the horizontal plane. The amount of change in SRA across the record would depend on the amount of tilt and tone arm length. The effect would be less noticeable with a spherical tip but increasingly noticeable as tip profiles become more severe.

Problematic indeed. Trading tracking error for other issues. Well, if it were simple, the perfect tonearm would have already have been developed. It does make a nice thought exercise. Precise control of dimensions, materials, surface finishes, mass, geometry, friction. If there was an effective way of applying bias to the entire travel without tilt many problems would be eliminated. I can think of several mechanical methods, but the forces involved would be so small that friction becomes a sticking point (pun intended).

Sometimes one has to say xxxx it all and just be amazed that it works at all! OR one can't be too dogmatic in their approach; pivoted and linear tracking arms both have their advantages and in the end, it comes down to how well a designer carefully balanced out the various variables and compromises. I've heard great examples of both designs.

I guess what got me was the person who wrote this piece doesn't seem to know a whole lot about tonearms. The piece presented like this was the first linear tracking arm out there when that clearly isn't the case. Like this guy solved something no one else thought about. Truthfully, it looks like a HS science project.

[mep]

Oh my. That looks like the headshell used on the original AR table many, many moons ago.

[Rust]

Truthfully, it looks like a HS science project.

I'll try not to set fire to the lab, again. Really. What interested me was the traveling beam concept, it's simplicity.