How critical is the exact placement of the tonearm

Thom,

Different offset angles move your null points, but given that we're talking about perhaps +/- a degree (due to manufacturing tolerances), this may not be such a big deal.

Well, the wrong offset angle should increase your degrees of tracking error... so, as you've noted many times, we STILL ain't really hearing the cartridge (or the arm+cartridge combo for that matter).
Really if we could only get these things correct to begin with, analogue life would be so much simpler:)!

Agreed that getting it "right" is the goal, Greg. It's fascinating to me that through the years, so many different geometries have been proposed as being right.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

I agree with Thom. But if you take care in setting it up (Really careful care) as in the VPI manual as I did. It is very rewarding.

Hi Radrog,

I think that everyone is in agreement that you can get there from here with any tool. The issue is (a) how an individual interacts with the tool - how intuitive it is to use, and (b) how much effort it takes.

To date however, I have to add that everyone who has tried an arc-style protractor will never go back. I'm sure that there will be an exception to this at some point.

Hats off to Wally for his out of the box thinking years ago.

Cheers,
Thom