Do wooden arms warp

having owned 8 wooden armed tone arms (Schroeder, Reed and Durand) the issue ignored here is how the wood is treated.....which, of course, is secret and proprietary for each manufacturer.

so to generalize about what wood is going to do or not do in terms of temperature and humidity or even time is simply wrong.

personally i'm agnostic about material, passionate about performance.

I deliberately over-reacted to stir up some responses. In fact, I totally agree with Mike. In my personal experience, Schroeder, Reed, and Durand tonearms are or can be just wonderful sounding. And they do last. (The dirty little secret is that Durand has lately eschewed the use of wood in their TOTL design, the Telos. Mike probably knows this.) So it's more fair and valid to target one's criticisms to specific tonearms, rather than to tar and feather the whole bunch of them. By that token, I apologize to lovers of carbon fiber and ceramic. (Ceramic? What tonearm is made of ceramic?)

Tony, good luck aligning your cartridge within "microns". That ought to keep you up at night.

Lohanimal, I never did think you were taking a pot shot; some of the responders were, though.

Not a problem. I rough in my set up with my eyes and then fine tune with my ears.

Lewm, cursing and discrediting other posters, and stating that the issue should "be put to death" does not sound like a way to stir up responses. I observed you do this in a number of other posts. It is a bit tiresome.

Why not stick with facts and introduce valid arguments? That should stimulate thoughtful discussion.

And when you lose your cool with nasty swipes at others, a simple apology is in order.

woods can be treated to be pretty much impervious to humidity/temperature issues that result in expansion and contraction of the material. That is not too hard to imagine thanks to chemistry.