Do wooden arms warp

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.

I know. That's what I was saying. The wood can be coated with varnishes or other polymeric compounds to make it more dimensionally stable but then is it still really wood or is it a polymeric construction with a wood look?
And I was not generalizing, I was making a supposition about the nature of wood and its impact on set-up stability with the hopes that someone who has actual experience with a wooden tonearm would comment. Some have commented that they sound great; but we want to know more. Its not a criticism. Everything in Audio has tradeoffs and if wooden tonearms sound really good but need to have the set up tweaked now and then, so be it. Many of us in this hobby aren't expecting plug n play then forget it. It fact, we live for the opposite.