“Positive Scanning”, to borrow Dacca’s apt description, is not new… Aside from the seminal Decca effort starting in the 50s, JVC in the late 70s, introduced their far more elegant execution of this concept, in their MC 1 moving coil, wherein a wafer thin film had the “coils” photo etched on it and placed very near the stylus tip, resulting in far lower mass and much, much lower inductance. I once had the MC version of the Decca, in the form of an Ikada cartridge, mounted on a Kenwood LO 7 D…
When the arm swung towards the spindle, the cartridge would distort badly! I finally figured it out: The cartridge was being affected by electromagnetic radiation from the motor, which was interacting with the cartridges powerful magnets and pulling the cartridge down towards the LP and thus increasing the tracking force, leading to the cause of distortion. To the list of “Positive Scanning” transducers, one must also add the outstanding Stax CP-X cartridge. Though neither an MM, MI nor MC, this electrostatic/FM, amplitude sensing cartridge, definitely was a positive scanner, as a closer inspection of it will reveal. Prior art… – Kavi Alexander