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RE: One more thought re. Biotracer arms

The electronically controlled tonearm on the big Sony's (and some other competitors in that era) were works of art. I'm unaware of anyone making one today. If the system is working properly, the tonearm's effective mass should hypothetically become irrelevant. The arm's tiny servomotor should compensate for resonance effects in real time. The upshot being that these should accommodate any cartridge from the most compliant MM to the stiffest MC. Whether it does this without undesirable side-effect is the question.

I've never dug into this area in the Sony design. It seems a little too good to be true and it seems impossible to tell if it's working properly. I still say you need to match the effective mass of the arm to your cartridge compliance without regard to the presence of the biotracer. Most of the biotracer arms seem to be medium- to high- mass in appearance.

See the below old post for some discussion about the Denon variant called Servotracer. Seems like the same thing-- I have opened up and repaired one of those. A miracle of complexity!


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  • RE: One more thought re. Biotracer arms - mr.bear 23:57:46 12/05/16 (0)

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