Turntable set up- How easy is it

The most difficult thing I found was knowing what to listen for when I screwed things up, err, I mean made an adjustment. I'm not referring to gross break-up distortion. That's easy. It's how the many adjustments interact and how they relate to the ease, focus, coherence, L/R balance, top to bottom frequency balance and sibilance. It can be very elusive and frustrating for the beginner. Repeat, repeat, repeat until it's right and then do it again until it's not "good enough" anymore because there are no doubts, you've done it that good. If you're a beginner and you've done it right, it wasn't easy. If you're a beginner and you've done it easy, it isn't right.

I wouldn't do final arm adjustment until your the cartridge had been fully burnt-in, that's at least 100 hours but possibly more. 100 hours is a kind of universal number, more or less. My Grado phones was not fully burnt-in after 100 hours but probably 90% so. The same with Purist Audio interconnects. But both kept improving after 100 hours. Cartridge is something different but still..
I would give it 200 hours. Now if you are going to adjust VTA and anti-skating for each record as some do - you got a problem of being frustrated and busy all the time.

Inna, according to Soundsmith, the mechanism of cartridge break-in is rather disconcerting.

They say that a cartridge breaks in by twisting its guts to accommodate an imperfect installation. Certainly my Koetsu has not changed much, except for the "magic" when I got the final minuscule correction just right.

If Soundsmith is right, and they are, after all, a cartridge manufacturer and rebuilder, then it follows that adjustment should be continuous until you get the magic.

We have better hearing and more objectivity than Peter. Just kidding. 

There is a thread here, most people agree that 30-50 hours are needed for certain. Some think 100. I am trying to save the man a lot of time and effort. Make the initial adjustments to cover the basics, then wait for 200 hours and spend a day to get it right. Not too much work. But if he wants to make it truly spectacular - align the cartridge by ear. This might take couple of weeks, so what? I was kidding. I certainly am not going to do this, though it could be interesting. In this case you would be doing individual custom alignment.