Vinyl heresy-overhang induced distortion is not that important


I have learned and am of the opinion that the quality of the drive unit, the quality of the tonearm, the quality of the cartridge and phono stage and compatibility/setting of all these things (other than setting overhang) and the setting of proper VTF, VTA, SRA, and azimuth are far more important than worrying about how much arc-induced and overhang- induced (the two are related) distortion one has. I learned this the hard way. I will not go into details but please trust me-I am talking about my new ~15K of turntable components for the deck itself and excluding cartridge and phono stage. I have experimented with simply slamming a cartridge all the way forward in the headshell, placing the cartridge mid-way along the headshell slots, and slammed all the way back, each time re-setting VTF, VTA, SRA, and azimuth. I would defy anyone to pick out the differences. I have 30K of tube separates, a Manley Steelhead, and DeVore O/93's. I submit that any differences in distortion due to sub-optimum arcs and deviations from the two null points and where they are located (those peaks in distortion) are masked several times over by distortion imposed by my tubed gear and my loudspeakers. To believe that your electronics and loudspeakers have less distortion than arc-induced distortion is unrealistic. I have heard startling dynamics, soundstaging, and detail with all three set-ups. It is outright fun to listen to and far preferable to my very good digital rig with all three set-ups. 
My point is that getting perfect alignment is often, not always, like putting lipstick on a pig, I think back on my days on owning a VPI Classic and then a VPI Prime and my having Yip of Mint Protractors fashion custom-made protractors for each of these decks and my many hours of sitting all bent over with eye to jewelers loop staring down horizontal twist among parallax channels and getting overhang on the exact spots of two grids and yet never hearing anything close to the level of sound I get now. Same cartridges, same phono stage, only my turntable/arm combination has changed. I kept thinking the answer had to be in perfect alignment when it was clearly everything else but.
Thoughts? I am sure I will get all kinds of flack. But for those that do tell me I am nuts, try my experiment sometime with a top-tier deck/arm combination and report back. 
128x128fsonicsmith
@lewm The null points for Löfgren "A" (identical to Baerwald) are at 66.0mm and 120.9mm.
You've got your A's mixed with your B's. Cheers,
Spencer

In my experience everything is important, but if I had to rank the various adjustments, proper azimuth is 1 or 2
Dear @lewm : """ This business is not as simple as detecting and eliminating a distortion that is a constant. """

Agree, everywhere every time, we just can’t avoid distortions in a home room/audio system.
That does or could not means that because the audio systems are " full " of distortions we don’t try to fix or put at minimum those distortions we can detected and that we have the knowledge to lower its levels even if we can’t detected as the OP where exist the tools to do it as is the cartridge/tonearm alignment that certainly is better to do it in the orthodox universal alignments that just leave it at random.

@uberwaltz : """ Sounds almost like a good case for the linear tracking arm ..."""

exist no single audio items that are perfect in audio and certainly LT tonearms are not, do you think that if the LT is the rigth way to go the AHEE where we all belongs did not choosed it instead the pivoted designs?. Everything has its own trade offs even that the users of it stay satisfied with.
You already read my posts in your thread and I don’t want that those " devoted " gentlemans come here to make again a " big deal " about  with subjective explanation but no facts comparisons.
Exist a dedicated thread for the ET LT tonearm why always that gentleman did/do a big deal when I or other audiophiles post some of the LT trade-offs? Makes no sense. Of course that every one is free to post anything in any thread.

R.