#linear tracking turntable

This is from a tech in Perth Australia. He fixes up old stuff. Good on Yah Mate! (one of my daughters moved to Oz).

The example is a Pioneer PL L1000 linear tracking turntable. It is a repair and restore video. It is obvious he is a fan of the brand.

This is an earlier version of my Phazer turntable.

Pioneer never sold this model in North America. Some made it here as they did sell it in Military PX stores to US servicemen overseas. There was this model and a version 2 under Pioneer in Asia.

Mine is branded a Phase Linear which was owned by Pioneer back in the day and they did import it to this side of the big water. That is a Phase Linear 8000a Series 2. It is mechanically identical but had some re-engineered electronics to simplify the circuits. The only other difference is the twirly knob on the right is replaced with two half circle buttons to move the arm laterally under command.

Liquid Audio may not have done a full restoration. He got it going again for sure. He does show that the old rubber goes away and needs replacing. He did that for the small arm lift motor, but I did not see if he fixed the foot surrounds. The lower half of the TT that holds the motor and arm is suspended on 4 spring towers that have rubber surrounds. Since you can see the springs exposed in his video I wonder. When I replaced mine with new rubber it hides the springs.

I am an old person. My hand can get a bit shaky with fine motor skills being used. So manual placing of the stylus is a thing of the past. So when I encountered mine for sale I grabbed it sight unseen. It can be fully automatic, but I usually cue it with the lateral command. The automatic return is very handy if I drift off.

This is a great TT. It is Pioneer showing off. The lateral arm movement is by a linear induction motor. No strings, or belts or rotating shafts. The arm mount slides on smooth rails and there is no mechanical drive contact at all. The tonearm is carbon fiber. The height for the cartridge is adjustable. The tone arm accepts a standard headshell so swapping phono cartridges may take a whole minute to do.

I am totally sold on the concept. I had a number of high end TTs with conventional pivoting arms. I chanced upon a Harman Kardon Rabco on Craigslist for $200.00. I knew what it was and was intrigued. I got it and really liked how it worked. It did things better than my Sony 2251, it also did some things worse. Vibration isolation was poor. Then I found a very nice Pioneer built Phase linear 8000 ( Pioneer PL1000) which was much better and did OK in the isolation department. Both of those will mount any standard phono cartridge with the PL1000 family using a standard head shell to boot.

It was pure luck I found and was able to get these. I have seen no more of either type locally for several years. Across North America there may be only a few come up in a year. Today I found none listed on the Audio Mart for the whole continent. A more general Google Search gives you ads for units that sold already.

The simple reasoning behind the linear concept is the records are cut on a lathe that tracks straight across the lacquer. Playback should mimic this. More subtle is I find a better and more stable image in the sound and better tracking in the inner grooves. I also like there is far less fussing getting the setup. There is no anti-skating force to always get wrong.

There are very generally several levels of this type of turntable.

There is the ultra high end where the tonearm is a special piece of engineering built for an ultra high end turntable deck.

This is a Clearaudio from Germany. Currently produced. If you have to ask......

There is a merely high end level which are the old halo products from Japan like the Yamaha PX3s, Pioneers, and Mitsubishi LT-20 & 30 decks with factory arms. Here also you find the B&O Beograms like the 4004 in several iterations. All of these use active lateral drives to move the arm along. All are no longer manufactured, but there are survivors. The Beogram has a single source for cartridges but they are quite good.

Beogram 4004. There is one for sale across town for $2000.00. Very pretty.

A bit below that and maybe not that far below are the popular but I consider deeply flawed air bearing arms you can get for more common decks. My criticism is that the tiny cantilever must provide the force to overcome the inertia of the arm assembly. There is a lot of inertia. Dead level with good perfectly centered disks they perform very well.

Next I place the several Harman Kardon STx Rabco turntables. They have an active lateral drive that is a brilliant mechanical concept, but is executed from OK to poorly. The decks are not great as they are framed with sheet metal, but they respond well to modification and tweaking. Mine is an ST5 which is the mechanically simplest and has a metal drive roller that does not dissolve into goo like the rubber ones. The more complex units are far too mechanically complex so they earned a bad reputation for reliability. They are not bad looking.

There are several strange designs made because they could. Mitsubishi and Sony made vertical playing units. I do not like the idea, but they are collectable.

Aside from being compact on a table top, just why????

Then there is the base level of the type. If you look in ads this is most of them. Technics and Sony and many brands are there with a simple and compact design. All these use P mount cartridges. You are not stuck with a single source but selection is far more limited than standard cartridges. Grado makes some, and so does AT.

It is likely that most on the market are these cheaper ones. I have no personal experience, but I have read comments where users were quite happy with them. Typical price is $200.00.

Overall Tangential tracking TTs are uncommon. Good ones surface from time to time at reasonable prices. Then there are the unreasonable prices. If you have lots of $$ you can have a new one off a dealer's stock. Or just keep an eye out for deals that is fun.

Right now I have 3.  I use one.  One is in a box on the market for good money.  One is downstairs sitting pretty but not hooked up.  One is on top of my steam powered stereo stack.  Two are linear trackers and the one in the box is a conventional audiophile unit of good regard.

I am an engineer.  I have become totally sold on linear tracking. I like the sound, and I Iike the theory  For the uninitiated the tonearm carries the cartridge across the record in a straight line just like the machine that cuts record masters.  These machines cut straight across. That is because they need to push hard into the media.  That just can’t be done with a pivoting arm.

In a conventional pivot arm if it is perfectly adjusted it is properly aligned in two places in the arc and out of alignment everywhere else.  If it is not perfectly adjusted it is wrong everywhere. The tangent of the cartridge mount is offset from the Pivot causing a pull towards the center or more pressure on one side of the groove.  That is compensated for with anti-skating devices which are also hard to get adjusted.  You can hear when it is off.

The hard part of linear tracking is moving the arm precisely to follow the groove. There are several ways to do that.  One popular way is to create a frictionless bearing like an air cushion that lets the arm move without any force.  Oh nothing is frictionless and there still is inertia, just saying. Another way is a mechanical or electromagnetic drive that uses sensors to detect minute angular changes and move the arm to compensate.  Another uses clever mechanics to do the thing without any sensors.

All a linear arm need be is set to the proper distance so it hits the record at the point it is tangent.  That can be done by eye or a ruler to good precision.

A linear tracker is easier to adjust and has fewer things to adjust. Win Win. My Harman Kardon Rabco ST5 is purely mechanical.  It is really cool.  It has some issues with basic design of the chassis, but the way the arm moves is so very clever.  When I saw the ad for it I jumped.  I knew what is was.  A friend had one decades ago.

Looking for parts and tweaks I came upon other devices and soon bought another LT turntable that uses electromechanics to move the arm and has a far better chassis. (the Phase Linear)  Both have had gentle repairs and tweaks under my hand.

So what are the effects to the sound of music?  If you are into the illusion of space it is better.  The 3D effect is more solid and does not drift left and right as it would (very subtly) in a pivoting arm.  The imbalance from poor anti-skate forces does not happen between the left and right channels. There is more detail available as the image is more focused.  You can hear more and deeper into the recording.

I spent years with my pivoting high end arm trying to get it just right.  Hard to do and requires much fiddling.  Oh and never exactly right.  Having less to fret about makes listening more pleasant.

I would not call it night and day different.  More like mid morning light vs the full force of noon day sun.  More intense and illuminating.

I wonder why there are 7s in the names?  I put the TKN22 stylus in the TK7 and did another lap of my usual suspects.  It was the familiar sound I was used to.  Nothing bad at all.  Smooth well resolved and all that.  Did several hours of listening.

During that I was feeling that I had not given the AT7v an even chance.  I ran it light in tracking force and it was shimmed on the twisted Chinese luxury crap head shell.

So while I was appreciating the old beast. ( I bought it in 1989 ) I pulled out the 7V and remounted it on the generic and straight head shell I got and added a 1 gram lead weight shim as well. The head shell with the TK7 is pretty heavy and I wanted it to be fair. The shimmed arrangement with the twisted thing was comparatively loose and well it did not deserve such support.

The next day I spun through TOTO and Cowboy Junkies and a Jazz album.  Then I swapped out the TK7 for the AT7 and did those again.  The AT7 was now at 1.9 grams tracking as well measured with the digital tracking scale thing.  Recommended is 2.0 grams.

My first try I liked the delicate detail and everything was nice but... No Bass.  I figured it was perfect for people with those LS3/5as.  I did not ponder why at the time.  But the tribe says the AT7 and the TK7 are blood brothers and sound really similar. In point of fact the stylus on the AT7 is a small elliptical as is the TKN22.  Also the engine of the AT7 is more than superficially similar and dates back to the same era as the Signet.

So a solid head shell, more tracking force and the bass is back.  Deep and solid.  On the Cowboy junkies Trinity LP side 4 “postcard blues” the toe tap on the riser is there and the resonance in the hall is great. On the other albums the Bass is solid and quite present. I have to say it is really really close to the old Signet.  It is smoother than the 440 Mla. 

I apologize and take back all the not good things I said about it. The AT7v is a very good unit. I have not done a full orchestral LP yet, but on jazz, and blues, and soft rock it is the equal of my old beast or even dare I say better?

On the LA 4 album the tiny bells are super clear.  On the “out of the Blues” Boz Scaggs album the guitar picks are clearly heard and the same is evident on Eric Clapton’s Slow hand reissue. It will be in the phaser for a while I think.

I especially like that what I am hearing agrees with reviews and reports from others who have compared the AT7 and the AT440.

I was playing an old record and noticed a couple of things.  There was a scratch in a couple of places, hey it happens.  The left channel is on the inside the right on the outside.  There was a small tick in the right speaker then again on the left.  A scratch should hit left first then right.  Then I played a string quartet and the violin was on the right and the viola on the left.  My left and right channels were swapped.  No big deal, and is fixable.  Is it between the preamp and amp or between the TT and the preamp?  Well when I shifted everything around it could have been swapped.  Easy to swap the TT leads so I did.

Then I ran through Tony Bennett Duets 2 as well as a couple more string quartets. Then I spun up an uncommon record for those who do not live in Vancouver, Wildroot Orchestra.  They are (were) a swing and blues cover band from the 80s who were REALLY good.  They are sort of like PMJ but done bigger. The AT 440 Mla is in the Phaser.  You know that is a good cartridge.  On this set of albums hotness is not in evidence.  It is clear and there is a lot of detail.

Oh and the Wildroot Orchestra has incredible bass on the drum solo of probably the best recording there is of “Sing Sing Sing.”

I had played the Tony Bennett album and the Wildroot album on the Vessel.  That was good, this is better.  It is small differences in texture and detail, but hell that’s what this whole game is about.

I Still have to pop the Signets in for a run, but sometimes you just have to enjoy the music.  There is nothing wrong with the 440.  Well it has the wrong name for wealthy Chinese to buy.  They hate the number 4.  In Mandarin it is a homonym of the word for death apparently.  I bet the Japanese know that.

I am not doing this blind so I could be cheating myself.  I expect more expensive cartridges to be better, so they are. 

The 440 and the signets are the most expensive pickups I have. The signets is out of production but is reputed to be similar to the AT 150 Mlx also out of production but the AT150 ANV is still available at 1600 usd. 

The high end of cartridges goes much farther than that. You bang against 5 figures surprisingly soon.  There are the 5 figure Grados, and a host of moving coils of quality. I had a high output moving coil years ago, and was not impressed.  Moving coils are problematic and need additional gain to work. They share a problem with the premium grados. The styli wear out and cannot be replaced but at the factory. They may also have a particular type of pleasant distortion.

My issue is, how much detail can you extract, and is it worth obsessing about.  I think you can get great sound with a fortunate selection of equipment.  Having spent 50 ish years playing with this stuff I simply recognize the “good stuff” from days gone by.  A good turntable is critical and there are a lot out there.  Preamps are tricky, but the good ones can be found.  Amplifiers that have survived from the 80′s survived for good reasons.  All my stuff is 80′s vintage design.  Most is refreshed and properly maintained.

I suspect the super high end is full of unicorns.  Turntables spun by dental floss with tone arms that look like something from a transformers movie. Ranks of vacuum tubes heating your home.  All I think actually adding distortion that is pleasant to the ear, but not on the recording.  Recording space does not happen in a studio multi track recording.  Hearing that is not a measure of accuracy.

About ten years ago I bought a new bicycle.  It was all carbon fiber and cool and high end.  I had a good bike, but I was going to try to up my game and found a good deal. It was still expensive.

Once I spent the money I rode it a lot.  Not unusual, but it was winter here and the weather is pretty epic for rain and wind.  I was just so enthusiastic I had to ride as much as I could.  The previous year I had gone 3500 km and with the new bike I cleared over 6000 km.  It was partly to justify the money I just spent and partly because it was so much better.

In the last week or so I have been spending hours every day listening to my stereo.  Pulling old albums off the shelf and giving them a spin.  I am really enjoying it.  Reason is I just spent some money on that turntable.  If I ignore it how can I justify it?  Oh and there is that plague thing and being home a lot. Enthusiasm comes from strange places.

So part of this is justifying my money, part is exploring my collection again after a long time, and part is do I notice any differences? 

I have been intrigued by linear tracking turntables for a long time.  They should be better in fundamental ways. That is to do with geometry and how vinyl records are made.  There are other advantages, but there are also flaws and foibles in the complexity of the mechanics.

There are very simple linear tonearms that use air cushions so they are supposed to be “frictionless”.  Nothing is frictionless. Very low drag, but the lateral motion is driven by the teeny tiny cartridge cantilever pushing against the inertia of the arm. Inertia is no big deal if the lateral motion is uniform and steady which it aint.  I prefer some mechanical assistance.  I like the Rabco Solution as it is elegant, very simple, and should be reliable as long as I do nothing stupid.

My #1 system with the Sony and Grace and Signets (all antique) is really good, and was especially good once I got the anti-skate properly adjusted (That was a trick I tell you) and a cork mat for the platter.  The bloody thing just sings. Everything comes in focus and there is joy in the world.

Take that as proof that ant-skate is really critical to get right.  Add to that is the true value of it varies with the friction in the groove which varies with the intensity of the signal and therefore the best you get is close and never perfect.

Linear tracking turntables do not have or need anti-skate cuz they just don't skate.  Therefore logic tells us that this focus thing should be fine always.

I have temporarily retired the Sony.  Mostly it was inconvenience of having the HK set up on a small coffee table in an awkward place.  So all this recent listening has been with the HK.

Small and subtle differences are bubbling up. In Famous Blue Raincoat where Ms Warnes is singing background as well as lead that track is much more clearly apparent and separate.  When L Cohen is sharing lead and background in Joan of Arc those are also much more clear and separate.

The timbre of instruments is different just a wee bit.

I am crediting the turntable rather than the cartridge as the Signet is no slouch. It is supposed to be roughly equal to a few notches above the AT 440 in the current Audio Technica family. The stylus though on the Signet is a modified elliptical rather than the “microline”.  Be that as it may these are interesting differences.

Are there any negatives to the HK.  Yes there are, and I hope they are treatable. This machine dates from a time when they should have known better about sound isolation.  The bearing is mounted on a sheet metal base.  Actually everything is mounted on that. It is fairly hefty, but overall this unit weighs half of what the Sony weighs and sheet metal is sheet metal.  The Platter has less heft than I would like, but it has a fairly thick massive mat.  If you tap the top of the plinth or the lid when closed there is a strong bung sound through the speaker.  The platter runs quiet when you are not tapping stuff and seems well damped.  There is probably a path into the arm by the base plate for sound.  In an ideal world this plate would be thick and heavily damped.

So I am going to add new feet to the beast to replace the old dried out probably once reasonably good damping material on the original feet.  We will see what some Sorbothane will do there.  It may help with the base as well as foot fall sensitivity.  I will probably also try some dynamat or equal underneath the base plate.  That stuff is good at taming sheet metal.