Am I asking too much?

Audiophiles. Can't tell the difference between disgust and anger. Have infinite patience while being ripped off. But quibble endlessly over minutia like how many degrees of separation there are between a character and Kevin Bacon. Maybe some audiophiles do deserve to be ripped off. They seem a little masochistic to me.

@millercarbon -  lol, love the passion! I set up my current cartridge with a borrowed Dr. Feichert, but that was a$450 Hana EL - much lower stakes.  Happy to do it again, but do believe a local dealer would want to nurture a relationship.  

@noromance @dekay @roxy54 @lewm @jjss49  - yes, was going to respond but wanted to get a read from others first, based on their experience.  My going in thought was that if he came in $500 above but did set-up, I’d do that trade (not just for the setup but to support a business in my local community).  What took me aback was the note saying they refer setup to some other company.  Not “we’re doing this due to covid” or “we’ll do it for $200”.  But the way he did it, it puts me in the position, as the customer, of feeling like I’m asking for a favor.  Oh well...

That’s pretty sad.

@millercarbon -  lol, love the passion! I set up my current cartridge with a borrowed Dr. Feichert, but that was a$450 Hana EL - much lower stakes.  Happy to do it again, but do believe a local dealer would want to nurture a relationship.  

Dream on! Here in Seattle the only relationship they have time for is the one between you and their credit card reader. Sounds like the same where you are, at least with this one.

The stakes are no different. They all respond to the same alignment and tweaking. They all have stylus guards. Koetsu are slightly different but not because of price but because they don't color code the pins. I guess they assume since its not entry level you must know what you're doing. Also they aren't threaded, and don't provide any hardware, so you need to visit a local shop and ask for a few nuts and bolts.  

That's what I did, and just like in my post felt no guilt whatsoever in taking up their time and getting free parts. They having done their best to rip me off even worse than your do-nothing dealer wanted to do you, only so many years ago five different contingents of arrogant twenty-something reps have since come and gone, me long since forgotten by them, their utter incompetence never forgotten by me. 

The thing about turntables, and all this stuff really, is once you really understand it well there's all kinds of little tells the clueless give without even knowing it. Just like there's all kinds of little tells the ones who really know their way around do. Takes one to know one as they say. Which is how I am quite sure the guy they use to set up their million dollar AT/dAgostino/Wilson monstrosities is mediocre at best. 

Oh and btw if you really are seriously looking at a $7k Koetsu I would first be seriously researching the Soundsmith strain gauge. For about the same money you will have a totally SOTA cartridge, plus SOTA phono stage, plus affordable user replaceable styli for life.

"Maybe some audiophiles do deserve to be ripped off."

Some people can afford not to care.