"This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment,..."

This is S.E.R. which means out of fifty responses about two of them hit the spot. How many S.E.rers does it take to answer a question ? The number has never been determined.

You are absolutely right about the linear tracking, though realize it is not perfect either. Nothing is friction free enough so therefore there is a motor and an optical pickup that tells the little motor when to turn. It jogs along as the record plays which thus means there is tracking error oscillating between negative and positive angle to the groove. It is still a hell of alot better.

Among the worse of ideas was the aesthetically attractive yet a practical nightmare known as the S shaped arm. First of all the thing has more mass. The best arm is a straight line because it will have the lowest mass. Another thing about those Ttables is that most of them set the cartridge wrong anyway.

They generally tried to set the geometry so that tracking was perfect at two point of the radius. they made a mistake thogh because they set the second point too far from the innermost grooves. That is where it is the most critical. That is where this non-tangental angle HURTS the most and causes the worst groove wear.

I had a couple with the S shaped arm and once I set it up as I saw fit, it looked like the cartridge was in cockeyed, but the thing played well. I mean really well. I didn't get that muddy sound toward the end of a side.

I played ALOT of vinyl in the day. Funny now I would only consider it for transcribing to digital.

One of my favorite Ttables ws the Dual 1229. First of all you could set the thing right on top of a speaker and it wouldn't get much feedback. Secondly, not only did the thing not have to be level, it would play standing up on its side. I **** you not. the arm is balaced in all axes and the tracking force and antiskate were applied by calibrated springs. If you are going to have a conventional arm, that's the way to do it.

And of course make it as long as possible.