Irregardless of whether you have a dealer set up your table for you you really need to know how to align a cartridge yourself. Cartridges age and suspensions sag so VTF and VTA will need to be adjusted as the cartridge ages. In addition if you ever change the cart you will need to align the new one and so on
A minimal set of tools I would recommend anyone owning a table of your budget and potential should have would include
While this may seem like "tweakery" it is actually the minimum necessary for you to realize what your LP system is capable of
As you get more into it then you can explore turntable isolation systems, mono specific cartridges and the like but for the time being the stuff I've outlined above will get you going
A minimal set of tools I would recommend anyone owning a table of your budget and potential should have would include
- An alignment tool like the ProJect
- A VTF gauge -- my preference is the Rega (https://www.musicdirect.com/analog-accessories/Rega-Atlas-Stylus-Force-Gauge) -- there are reasons to be leery of the cheaper ones, I have never found them to read reliably but others disagree ...
- Some form of VTA template (also useful for azimuth) such as this https://www.musicdirect.com/analog-accessories/millennium-acrylic-vta-block or http://www.analogueseduction.net/category-651/acoustical-systems-smartstylus-cartridge-set-up-tool.h...
- A stylus cleaner like this https://www.musicdirect.com/analog-accessories/zerodust-stylus-cleaner
While this may seem like "tweakery" it is actually the minimum necessary for you to realize what your LP system is capable of
As you get more into it then you can explore turntable isolation systems, mono specific cartridges and the like but for the time being the stuff I've outlined above will get you going