Gimmicky? Good? Dunno
Definitely eye catching, which leads me to assume the sound is going to be compromised
I believe I read that tracking force is measured and adjusted electronically in real-time. Anti-skate is not an issue with linear trackers.I think tracking and anti-skate is going to be a bitch on that thing and it's going to be real easy for it to either just not work or to dig trenches in LPs.
I just think it's cool that there are folks out there trying to apply modern technology to vinyl for the first time since the 80s.I don't doubt that they have put in substantial R&D to make this product. Tracking is of concern in a vertical arrangement, since a good deal of the work in tracking a record conventionally is done by gravity and following a single continuous groove. The ability to maintain tracking force at +/- 0.2 grams is one of my points of skepticism. That sounds like a fairly expensive mechanism in low volume, to do correctly. Gravity is cheap and accurate by comparison. Particularly knowing that records are often not truly flat.
I'm a bit of a traditionalist in many ways, so there may be better options that I have not seen or experienced yet. Hell, I just bought a new turntable that looks like it could have come straight out of the 70's!
I just think it's cool that there are folks out there trying to apply modern technology to vinyl for the first time since the 80s.
There are a treasure trove of classical, gimbaled belt- or direct-drive tables on the market, but very few companies using the world's readily-available microprocessors to re-implement stuff like linear tracking. I'm all for it.
Wow, that was a flashback! I had to go back to see what happened...Put it this way: if I see anybody drooling over a Sony Flamingo and then pooh-poohing this thing, I'm calling shenanigans.
If it's anything like my wife's Technics, it has an optical sensor that can detect the gaps between the tracks, and then maps them to memory so you can skip forward, back, or even jump to a specific song.how does it know how to skip a track? also the idea that you can just hold the side of it to stop it makes me a bit scared.
i think it definitely looks cool! i dig a linear tracker. didn't see the price tag on it yet...