Surely you jest Doug,
Who am I to go against the recommendations of the arm manufacturer? I use the lines to get a ball park for level, ie parallel to the LP surface of an average weight LP, then I listen and do some VTA adjustment. It's similar to balancing the arm during set up before you apply the estimated range for VTF on the SME V. Then I listen and adjust VTF and VTA again and then again until it sounds right. I follow the recommendations of the cartridge and arm manufacturers for the initial set up and THEN start the fine tuning by ear. My Air Tight manual also suggests to start with the top of the cartridge level putting the SRA in a range, and then adjust by ear. I, for one, was never "tempted" to set the arm level and then forget it. For those who are, those lines are helpful. You, and I to perhaps a lesser degree, will fine tune everything by ear. And that is how it should be for most of us.
I still think it would be more difficult to set up without the lines printed on the armtube. That tapered tube would be tough to set parallel to the record surface. Otherwise, I don't know how one would start the process.
One could try to set VTF without first roughly balancing the arm to neutral but I would not want to risk setting my stylus on a guage to read 6 grams. I want to at least first start in a ballpark. My eyes certainly are not good enough to get a ballpark 92 degree SRA and my fingers are not good enough to estimate what 2 grams feels like.
Either I'm missing something, or you are having some fun with me. This thread needs some humor injected in it.
I still rather strongly think the arm would be more beautiful without the lines, especially the 12" version, but you are the first to even acknowledge that suggestion, though you haven't commented on my point. What say you?
