Why Linear Tracking never took off?

Ha! Phasecorrect, you will get some posts on this thread for sure.

Actually linear tracking did "take off", and it is seen on some of the best, and most expensive turntables made. Rockport, Walker, Forsell, Versa Dynamics, Maplenoll,Goldmund, Clearaudio are a few of the ones that have the linear tracking type arms on them as a combo/package. Eminent Technology ET-2.5 is one of the more commonly seen separately available linear tracking arms.

The thing about linear tracking arms is, that it takes a high quality, and usually high cost application to make the most of this design. The mass market ones that were commonly seen in the 80s, like HK/Rabco,Pioneer, Technics, etc, were too "loose" to provide what was really needed to make an arm like this perform at top level. The air-bearing types finally showed what could be done with a linear tracking arm, and these are some of the best arms on the planet.

They are not without their problems, especially in set up requirements, but they do perform at a very high standard.

Twl's comments are to the point. As someone who tried several of the linear tracking arms in the mid-1980's, I found them to be a mixed bag. Linear tracking arms are conceptually the "ideal" way to reproduce LP's, since the path of the tonearm/cartridge duplicates the tangential path of the recording lathe cutter head. There are a number of practical and engineering problems, however, in making a good linear tracking assembly that is affordable.

First, the tolerances neeeded to produce a high-quality, air-bearing linear arm are very tight, which means that the manufacturing costs are likely to be much higher than a conventional pivoted tonearm.

Second, if you were going to invest in a good quality, air-bearing linear tracking arm, you needed to have a really solid, stable turntable that would accept the tonearm/bearing assembly. There weren't a lot of TT choices in the early to mid-1980's that were suitable for use with air-bearing linear tracking arms.

Third, the air pump needed for an air-bearing assembly posed additional engineering challenges. The pump must be able to deliver a fairly high volume of air at a very constant pressure (fluctuations in air pressure could lead to jerky movement of the tonearm). Noise was almost always a problem with those pumps, so having them in the same room with your playback system wasn't a good option. The alternative was to place the pump in an adjoining room or closet, and then run a long tube from the pump to the tonearm assembly. Needless to say, this tended to exacerbate the WAF (wife acceptance factor).

Last, not all cartridges were well suited for use with linear tracking arms -- there were either mounting problems, or problems with excessive noise being transmitted from the tracking assembly to the cartridge. There could also be problems with the rather stiff phono wiring harness, which could cause drag as the linear arm moved across the surface of the record.

In short, there was great potential in linear tracking arms, but their cost and the "tweakiness", and the expense of a really good matching turntable was more than most people could afford. With better pivoted tonearms becoming available from 1990 on, air-bearing linear tracking arms became relegated to the very highend market.

One rationale for linear arms was to maintain perfect tangency to the groove, following the track of the cutting head across the lacquer. In comparison, pivoted arms are truly tangent at only certain radii on the record, and this can result in distortion.

Linear tracking arms are far from simple in operation. TWL mentioned air bearing versions with pumps, and there have been others with multiple rotating rods or servo motors to facilitate the arms' lateral mobility, especially as required to track off-center records.

So I assume affordable Linear Tracking models from the 80s, such as Technics SL-10,Yamaha px-2,etc,are good in "theory"...but bad in "practice?"...are there any affordable models that come to mind...maybe the revox b791?