I love linear trackers, I've owned a Technics SL-10 and SL-6 - I now have an SL-7 nursed back to health by a local hifi repair guru - it sounds brilliant! Great video by the way! 😀
I have THREE Technics SL-QL1s from 1981 bough in the last 12 years and they are incredible. The best stylus I have installed on them is an Ortofon OM30 fine line one and it leaves the "recommended" EPS22 in the dust. They are also VERY reliable and relatively easy to fix. Congrats on the video!
Thank you! Damn, those are beautiful as well. I've been playing mine just yesterday and boy it sounds so good! Would love to do a review of the SL-QL1 one day. See you around 🤙🏼
nice video with a perfect introduction to sound playing systems, i remenber having bought my first tangential turntable but linear tracking was aplied to the tradicional arms ,as a Sharp/optonica i had ,the only problem it was always needing repauirs ,so i sold it but technics had it´s T4P system that was also very good in linear tracking but people call linear tracking turntables to tangential turntablçes allthough they were used in the other arm types, one that i still own is a toshiba with aurex cartridge and stylus and a new type of needle that came with a pre-amplifier but i´ve searched and never found another cartridge as it was given with the toshiba turntable but works perfect with a MM type, still have original aurex needles for it´s mm cartridge, you refer the rega P3 but i never saw it as an aceptable turntable only recentelly i bought a P10
Thank you for the insight. Rega makes excellent entry level decks like the P1 and P3 and although I've never demoed the higher end models, from what I've read online, they seem to work very well. The problem with some old linear tracking is finding the ones with available cartridges and spare parts. Nowadays with 3D printing technology, more and more small manufacturers are stepping up and bringing solutions that only a few years ago weren't possible. Cool times indeed.
yep, this really did answer a lot of my questions by the end. especially - why doesn't my linear tracking turntable sound better near the end of the record when the tracking error is supposed to be the greatest? as he says near the end because the arm has to make tiny adjustments all the time and that basically adds up to an error that is not much different than a regular arm angl.e. maybe one day they can figure out a way to eliminate the error for good!
I bought 3 linear trackers from an estate sale recently, for just $20 each. All are in good condition, but have been sitting unused for 20-30 years, so I've been busy cleaning, lubing, adjusting, and replacing belts on them to get them running again. The first one I've finished is the Luxman P-406, a lower mid-level model that actually works and sounds great with a new AT85EP cartridge. The second is a Sony PS-FL7ii which is a monster chassis with a drawer. Should be a fun project. I think it only needs a tonearm belt. The third is a Kenwood, that looks kinda clunky, but should be repairable. Great video, BTW. Thanks.
Thanks for the comment! Pretty good projects you have going on. I have a Song linear tracking turntable that also needs some love. They have a quite nice retro future kind of look. Cheers and good luck with those units!
i've got 3 tables, B&O Beogram RX2, TX2 and Mitsubishi LT30. (videos on my channel recorded direct from line out from all of them) I originally had a fairly decent radial arm table from the 80s, a Realistic lab-420. a few years ago i was researching replacing the cartridge with something more modern and went down the rabbit hole of how to install and choose an alignment, or an "alignment compromise" so to say.... and that led me down the path of researching linear trackers. i've read that commonly repeated statement about the motorized linear trackers going "as far from tangency as a good radial arm" but that doesn't make sense... even a 12" arm will have more angle deviation at its extremes than the hundredths of a degree of misalignment that any LT allow for before correcting... many are so sensitive as to basically move the arm constantly - the LT-30 in particular seems like this, the motion is so continuous you never see it 'crabbing' across. cool video, and that aurex looks sweet. i wish modern manufacturers would get back in on this, linear trackers are just better lol
Thank you for the nice comment! You have a pretty cool collection for what I've seen on your videos, super nice! And yeah the linear tracking technology on paper is superior but the mechanisms must be regularly serviced.
I have a Technics SL3 linear tracker from the 80's still in good working order. It's fitted with an Audio Technica cartridge and it sounds amazing. I love it.
I cannot speak for the higher end models, but the pulsed motion of the linear tracking tone arm carriage can be picked up by the cartridge/stylus. I recall becoming aware of this during quiet passages, and between tracks, with a Technics linear tracking turntable back in the 80's. I believe another manufacturer then promoted a "fluid motion" linear tracking system some time thereafter. Unfortunately I now have no idea who the manufacturer was, nor how successful and expensive this interpretation proved to be.
Thanks for the review! You have a new subscriber! I actually like linear tracking tables as well. It took some getting used to. I've had some higher end turntables before, most of them Thorens. They are very well built, but also very finicky. The automatic linear trackers are great for when you sometimes have to leave the room to do something else and you don't want to stop the record.
Thank you mate! And yeah definitely, the repeat function is a huge plus for me too. Would really like to do a video about the brand Thorens cause it's actually quite interesting. Have a good one!
I had a Realistic LAB-1500. Definitely NOT high-end hardware. One of my albums, Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits, Vol. II, had a bad scratch which would cause an angled tone-arm to skip badly. My linear-tracking LAB-1500 could play the entire album without skipping or sticking. It had the repeat function. It also had optical sensors to determine which size record you put in it, so it wouldn't drop the cartridge / stylus on the bare turntable. I really wanted the model from Sansui which had two tone-arms and could play both sides of the record without needing to flip it.
Miré el video sin haber visto que estaba escrita en español la descripción y enseguida me di cuenta en tu acento, pensé, "este habla español", de dónde sos? Buen video che, tengo un Technics SL-L20, del '87 de tracking lineal obvio
@@soundelegy5987 Montevideo. Sí, me cobraron un huevo la bandeja esa Technics cuando la compré, impecable y todo pero igual, imaginate acá viste como es, no es como ahí. Tremenda compra igual. Bueno, metele al canal, está copado, está bueno encontrarse con gente más o menos de la edad de uno que le guste el equipamiento de audio vintage, siempre son gente de 50 + jeje
Que grande! Y si, el mercado del usado allá es una locura. Llegaron muy pocas cosas durante los 70s-80s así que los precios están muy inflados, y encontrar algo en buen estado debe estar aún más complicado. Jeje los canales de Vintage Audio son casi siempre de gente que la vivió así que tranqui 50+, acá intentamos otro estilo :p Gracias por la buena onda y ojalá nos crucemos en otros videos!
@Sound Elegy En la madre Dude, yo creí que eras de algún país Nórdico jajaja, te veo desde Tijuana, México, vi tú video desde que salió pero no me había percatado de este comentario del bro de aquí arriba, yo actualmente uso un Kenwood KD-76F del 87, gracias a este tornamesa me enamoré del linear tracking y no lo dejaría jamás jajaja, aunque quiero mejorarlo por un Pioneer PL-L70, me ha gustado más el diseño y la funcionalidad de quartz lock. Me gusta mucho tú canal, espero sigas haciendo más videos🙏🏻
whatever litle repair i have to do to my components i travel 400kms by road, in the 80´s i had three excelent technicians all from germany due to a Nato airforcefield 4kms from the city i live and grew up ,they had a entire building neighbohood for german young families that sold very cheap their european hi-fi systems for a very low price kind of 35€ ditrectelly converted to todays money, during those years almost 40 i gathered a lot of good sounding systems from european brands ,also some japanese brands and with that my hi-fi colections as a european area. They could be more simple than japanese brands but quality wise they were all very good at all levels ,but never i bought a power amplifier and control amplifier from a european brand. surprising high quality, and english speakers were also very good like celestion, philips ,warfedale, kef, magnat, and many others from north european brands ,the B&O only had one system but while it worked it had a very high quality sound, too much electronic and it failed putting out of work the regualr sources, because normally the cover stoped opening(electronic opening with the touch of a finger)
Definitely the 80's were a great time for HiFi audio in Europe. England has always produced amazing quality speakers and power amplifiers. Monitor audio, KEF and Cambridge Audio to name a few. To this day my home setup is mostly British equipment. Unfortunately nowadays it's not like before and finding someone to repair audio gear is very difficult and very expensive. Here in Berlin we have only one or two excellent cassette deck repair guys but you have to wait sometimes for months for an appointment. Luckily with UA-cam tutorials and buying spare parts from China, you can DIY pretty much 80% of the repairs needed. Thank you for sharing once again 🙏🏻
The big drawback of this 'table is with the proprietary headshell/stylus (not a standard 1/2" mount) combination make it impossible to upgrade the stylus.
A few linear tracking turntables had that problem of proprietary cartridges, and they usually had one thing in common: the ability to optically detect bands (tracks) on a record for automated random access, such as by programming a play order for the side. A proprietary cartridge wound up being necessary to accommodate the optical sensor array required for such a feature, since there were no guarantees that third party pickups wouldn't cause obstruction problems. And a potentially annoying issue with this is replacement styli; OEM sources have likely dried up years ago, leaving aftermarket sources like Pfanstiehl. Linear tracking turntables that did not have this optical sensor were usually made for P-mount pickups, which had its perks and quirks. The perk was that P-mounts were standardized to the point where virtually every P-mount cartridge was plug-n-play ... in theory. The quirk was that you usually couldn't adjust anything and your choice of pickups were limited to whatever was available on that form factor, and the offerings were usually low-end to mid-range. There were some P-mount tonearms where some adjustments were possible, such as the Technics SL-M1 and SL-MA1, but those were usually the exception. Of course, there are some linear trackers that were made for standard 1/2" mount pickups. Examples include the Sony PS-X800 and the PS-X555ES (both of these Sony turntables are Biotracer models), the Yamaha PX-1, PX-2, and PX-3, the Revox B791 and B795, and the way-ahead-of-its-time but mechanically complex Marantz SLT-12.
Excellent video, however in order to explore linear tracking turntables, you could have picked a much better turntable. The best linear tracking turntables were in the golden days (late 70s to early 80s). Revox, Sony, even technics produced high end tables that are MUCH better than the Aurex. Technics SL M3 or Revox B790 are good examples.
I love linear trackers, I've owned a Technics SL-10 and SL-6 - I now have an SL-7 nursed back to health by a local hifi repair guru - it sounds brilliant!
Great video by the way! 😀
Glad you enjoyed the video! I love the SL-6, is one of my favourite designs. Nice collection!
Very lucky my friend. I have the sl 5 and love the sound quality. Can only imagine that the SL7 and 10 sound incredible and amazing
I have THREE Technics SL-QL1s from 1981 bough in the last 12 years and they are incredible. The best stylus I have installed on them is an Ortofon OM30 fine line one and it leaves the "recommended" EPS22 in the dust. They are also VERY reliable and relatively easy to fix. Congrats on the video!
Thank you! Damn, those are beautiful as well. I've been playing mine just yesterday and boy it sounds so good! Would love to do a review of the SL-QL1 one day. See you around 🤙🏼
There are hyperelliptical and even fineline/shibata styli availabe for the EP series carts that sound excellent. I put a hyper on my SL-10.
nice video with a perfect introduction to sound playing systems, i remenber having bought my first tangential turntable but linear tracking was aplied to the tradicional arms ,as a Sharp/optonica i had ,the only problem it was always needing repauirs ,so i sold it but technics had it´s T4P system that was also very good in linear tracking but people call linear tracking turntables to tangential turntablçes allthough they were used in the other arm types, one that i still own is a toshiba with aurex cartridge and stylus and a new type of needle that came with a pre-amplifier but i´ve searched and never found another cartridge as it was given with the toshiba turntable but works perfect with a MM type, still have original aurex needles for it´s mm cartridge, you refer the rega P3 but i never saw it as an aceptable turntable only recentelly i bought a P10
Thank you for the insight. Rega makes excellent entry level decks like the P1 and P3 and although I've never demoed the higher end models, from what I've read online, they seem to work very well. The problem with some old linear tracking is finding the ones with available cartridges and spare parts. Nowadays with 3D printing technology, more and more small manufacturers are stepping up and bringing solutions that only a few years ago weren't possible. Cool times indeed.
This was excellent thank you. Was looking for a video about wth a linear turnable was, and this answered all my questions and more.
Really glad to hear that 🙏🏻 Anytime :)
yep, this really did answer a lot of my questions by the end. especially - why doesn't my linear tracking turntable sound better near the end of the record when the tracking error is supposed to be the greatest? as he says near the end because the arm has to make tiny adjustments all the time and that basically adds up to an error that is not much different than a regular arm angl.e. maybe one day they can figure out a way to eliminate the error for good!
This video needs more views! Great job on the editing and filming. 👍
Thank you 🙏🏻
Yo the editing is good! Underrated channel
🙏🏼
I bought 3 linear trackers from an estate sale recently, for just $20 each. All are in good condition, but have been sitting unused for 20-30 years, so I've been busy cleaning, lubing, adjusting, and replacing belts on them to get them running again. The first one I've finished is the Luxman P-406, a lower mid-level model that actually works and sounds great with a new AT85EP cartridge. The second is a Sony PS-FL7ii which is a monster chassis with a drawer. Should be a fun project. I think it only needs a tonearm belt. The third is a Kenwood, that looks kinda clunky, but should be repairable. Great video, BTW. Thanks.
Thanks for the comment! Pretty good projects you have going on. I have a Song linear tracking turntable that also needs some love. They have a quite nice retro future kind of look. Cheers and good luck with those units!
I have four Sony linear trackers. Best mass TT ever built.
what a great video. really well put together with interesting commentary.
Thank you for the kind words!
i've got 3 tables, B&O Beogram RX2, TX2 and Mitsubishi LT30. (videos on my channel recorded direct from line out from all of them) I originally had a fairly decent radial arm table from the 80s, a Realistic lab-420. a few years ago i was researching replacing the cartridge with something more modern and went down the rabbit hole of how to install and choose an alignment, or an "alignment compromise" so to say.... and that led me down the path of researching linear trackers. i've read that commonly repeated statement about the motorized linear trackers going "as far from tangency as a good radial arm" but that doesn't make sense... even a 12" arm will have more angle deviation at its extremes than the hundredths of a degree of misalignment that any LT allow for before correcting... many are so sensitive as to basically move the arm constantly - the LT-30 in particular seems like this, the motion is so continuous you never see it 'crabbing' across.
cool video, and that aurex looks sweet. i wish modern manufacturers would get back in on this, linear trackers are just better lol
Thank you for the nice comment! You have a pretty cool collection for what I've seen on your videos, super nice! And yeah the linear tracking technology on paper is superior but the mechanisms must be regularly serviced.
I have a Technics SL3 linear tracker from the 80's still in good working order. It's fitted with an Audio Technica cartridge and it sounds amazing. I love it.
Beogram 8000 from around 1980 had.DD and linear tracking too
Excellent video and editing. Deserves more views.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it
Nice video man! Would love to see a video about cassette decks that you recommend or even a video about replacing the belt on a cassette deck.
I cannot speak for the higher end models, but the pulsed motion of the linear tracking tone arm carriage can be picked up by the cartridge/stylus. I recall becoming aware of this during quiet passages, and between tracks, with a Technics linear tracking turntable back in the 80's. I believe another manufacturer then promoted a "fluid motion" linear tracking system some time thereafter. Unfortunately I now have no idea who the manufacturer was, nor how successful and expensive this interpretation proved to be.
my new favorite youtube channel
Thanks for the review! You have a new subscriber! I actually like linear tracking tables as well. It took some getting used to. I've had some higher end turntables before, most of them Thorens. They are very well built, but also very finicky. The automatic linear trackers are great for when you sometimes have to leave the room to do something else and you don't want to stop the record.
Thank you mate! And yeah definitely, the repeat function is a huge plus for me too. Would really like to do a video about the brand Thorens cause it's actually quite interesting. Have a good one!
I had a Realistic LAB-1500. Definitely NOT high-end hardware. One of my albums, Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits, Vol. II, had a bad scratch which would cause an angled tone-arm to skip badly. My linear-tracking LAB-1500 could play the entire album without skipping or sticking.
It had the repeat function. It also had optical sensors to determine which size record you put in it, so it wouldn't drop the cartridge / stylus on the bare turntable.
I really wanted the model from Sansui which had two tone-arms and could play both sides of the record without needing to flip it.
Miré el video sin haber visto que estaba escrita en español la descripción y enseguida me di cuenta en tu acento, pensé, "este habla español", de dónde sos? Buen video che, tengo un Technics SL-L20, del '87 de tracking lineal obvio
Gracias che! Soy de La Plata pero vivo en Berlín hace rato ya. Vos de donde? Me alegro que hayas encontrado el video, la SL-L20 es un tanque.
@@soundelegy5987 Montevideo. Sí, me cobraron un huevo la bandeja esa Technics cuando la compré, impecable y todo pero igual, imaginate acá viste como es, no es como ahí. Tremenda compra igual. Bueno, metele al canal, está copado, está bueno encontrarse con gente más o menos de la edad de uno que le guste el equipamiento de audio vintage, siempre son gente de 50 + jeje
Que grande! Y si, el mercado del usado allá es una locura. Llegaron muy pocas cosas durante los 70s-80s así que los precios están muy inflados, y encontrar algo en buen estado debe estar aún más complicado. Jeje los canales de Vintage Audio son casi siempre de gente que la vivió así que tranqui 50+, acá intentamos otro estilo :p Gracias por la buena onda y ojalá nos crucemos en otros videos!
@Sound Elegy En la madre Dude, yo creí que eras de algún país Nórdico jajaja, te veo desde Tijuana, México, vi tú video desde que salió pero no me había percatado de este comentario del bro de aquí arriba, yo actualmente uso un Kenwood KD-76F del 87, gracias a este tornamesa me enamoré del linear tracking y no lo dejaría jamás jajaja, aunque quiero mejorarlo por un Pioneer PL-L70, me ha gustado más el diseño y la funcionalidad de quartz lock.
Me gusta mucho tú canal, espero sigas haciendo más videos🙏🏻
whatever litle repair i have to do to my components i travel 400kms by road, in the 80´s i had three excelent technicians all from germany due to a Nato airforcefield 4kms from the city i live and grew up ,they had a entire building neighbohood for german young families that sold very cheap their european hi-fi systems for a very low price kind of 35€ ditrectelly converted to todays money, during those years almost 40 i gathered a lot of good sounding systems from european brands ,also some japanese brands and with that my hi-fi colections as a european area. They could be more simple than japanese brands but quality wise they were all very good at all levels ,but never i bought a power amplifier and control amplifier from a european brand. surprising high quality, and english speakers were also very good like celestion, philips ,warfedale, kef, magnat, and many others from north european brands ,the B&O only had one system but while it worked it had a very high quality sound, too much electronic and it failed putting out of work the regualr sources, because normally the cover stoped opening(electronic opening with the touch of a finger)
Definitely the 80's were a great time for HiFi audio in Europe. England has always produced amazing quality speakers and power amplifiers. Monitor audio, KEF and Cambridge Audio to name a few. To this day my home setup is mostly British equipment. Unfortunately nowadays it's not like before and finding someone to repair audio gear is very difficult and very expensive. Here in Berlin we have only one or two excellent cassette deck repair guys but you have to wait sometimes for months for an appointment. Luckily with UA-cam tutorials and buying spare parts from China, you can DIY pretty much 80% of the repairs needed. Thank you for sharing once again 🙏🏻
I own a beogram 6500.It's perfect
Have Technics J33 , programmable LT. Also SLV5, vertical LT
Great video i didn't know linear turntables where around before the 1980s
Thank you! I was actually quite surprised as well when I found out. There's no much information about those old models.
that rabco, also the marantz SLT-12U! super cool tables, fully mechanical
Technics SL - 3...🙋♂️
The big drawback of this 'table is with the proprietary headshell/stylus (not a standard 1/2" mount) combination make it impossible to upgrade the stylus.
Yup, was a big drawback from many of this type of turntables.
@@soundelegy5987 It *is* a cool-looking table though.
@@mescko I got it pretty much just cause of that :P
A few linear tracking turntables had that problem of proprietary cartridges, and they usually had one thing in common: the ability to optically detect bands (tracks) on a record for automated random access, such as by programming a play order for the side. A proprietary cartridge wound up being necessary to accommodate the optical sensor array required for such a feature, since there were no guarantees that third party pickups wouldn't cause obstruction problems. And a potentially annoying issue with this is replacement styli; OEM sources have likely dried up years ago, leaving aftermarket sources like Pfanstiehl.
Linear tracking turntables that did not have this optical sensor were usually made for P-mount pickups, which had its perks and quirks. The perk was that P-mounts were standardized to the point where virtually every P-mount cartridge was plug-n-play ... in theory. The quirk was that you usually couldn't adjust anything and your choice of pickups were limited to whatever was available on that form factor, and the offerings were usually low-end to mid-range. There were some P-mount tonearms where some adjustments were possible, such as the Technics SL-M1 and SL-MA1, but those were usually the exception.
Of course, there are some linear trackers that were made for standard 1/2" mount pickups. Examples include the Sony PS-X800 and the PS-X555ES (both of these Sony turntables are Biotracer models), the Yamaha PX-1, PX-2, and PX-3, the Revox B791 and B795, and the way-ahead-of-its-time but mechanically complex Marantz SLT-12.
That's really interesting, thank you for you insights! Do you work with turntables or is it just a hobby? Cheers!
Excellent video, however in order to explore linear tracking turntables, you could have picked a much better turntable. The best linear tracking turntables were in the golden days (late 70s to early 80s). Revox, Sony, even technics produced high end tables that are MUCH better than the Aurex. Technics SL M3 or Revox B790 are good examples.
Thank you! And yes indeed, there are much better turntables than this one. But! :) My budget is quite limited :p