You could have at least three types of linear mixers:
- One where some type of spoon goes back and forth. This would probably just be worse than a rotary mixer though.
- One where the entire "basin" oscillates back and forth like a seesaw, like the machines they have at the blood bank to make sure the blood mixes well with the anticoagulant in the bag(s).
- One where the basin is airtight and vibrated up and down vigorously. I could see this work quite well for dry-ish mixtures of different particles, like if you have flour and sugar together in a container and want them mixed.
I think the third point (vibrating a container to mix different dry particles) is actually the worst way to do it. If the particles have different sizes (or densities technically, I think), they will separate when vibrated, not mix together. If you ever tried to mix Cereals by shaking, you know what I mean. The proper technique is turning over the container continuously to mix the different layers, like in a cement mixer.
Turbulent flow mixers. Typically operated in industrial processess where two or more products are pumped through a specially shaped manifold which causes intentional turbulence in the material to mix the different streams. Contrary to blenders or planetary mixers these operate in a continous fashion not on a batch-by-batch basis.
Even when started reading I still didn't know what it was about. When DJs were mentioned I thought it was something related to turntables, as they are the rotary thing? Vinyl was mentioned in few places so it must be it? Then audiophiles were mentioned which is super strange since audiophiles don't use mixers at all. You're not mixing anything when you listen to music.
Turned out it's just about rotary vs linear potentiometers. Or I misunderstood everything.
