Tonearm adjustments on the fly

Unless you can make adjustments from your listening position Vernier adjustments are not a good thing. A tonearm has to be fixed rigidly to the same structure as the platter. This helps drain vibrational energy away from the arm. It also assures the proper orientation of the stylus to the groove as long as you still have the eyesight to set it. Those nasty grub screws have a purpose. Spurious structures also tend to resonate. The most important asset are appropriate scales so you can return to your settings instantly. For most of us tonearms are set it and forget it devices. The more you fiddle with your arm the more likely you are to break something by mistake. I know somebody whose shirt sleeve just got caught under the arm reaching for an adjustment. He ripped the cantilever off. Those of us with workshops know you never work on anything with long sleeve shirts on. Usually it is just you that get hurt. Let's see, what's worse, getting sucked into your 15" jointer or ripping off your cantilever?

Right on Clearthinker, except I doubt anyone can hear the difference between record thicknesses. The actual VTA used to cut records is not constant but can vary a few degrees. I think this is just an example of audiophile nervosa.

A nice test. Turn the volume down and put your ear down by the record. Ladies make sure your hair is tied back, same for guys with long hair.
Listen to your arm tracking the record. Ideally you should here nothing. What you do hear is vibrational energy that is leaving the system and reflecting back on the stylus. If you can hear it so can't the stylus! The quieter it is the better your set up. 

I use a USB microscope also clearthinker but mostly to make sure the stylus is not way out of spec. The worse I've seen since I started using the microscope, which is a PITA by the way, was an AT cartridge. It was at 3 degrees in the wrong direction or 87 degrees. That is tracking the record.  I sent it back. The Soundsmith and Clearaudio cartridges have been very accurate and just setting the arm parallel to the record would be fine.

I have Pure Vinyl which is a Program I use to record records to the computer. It has digital RIAA correction which I have not had a chance to try because you need a phono stage that can bypass it's correction circuit. Anyway, I have recorded samples of the same record at various angles + - 2 degrees and you can AB them. I can not hear a difference on electrostatic speakers. Now we will hear that "digitizing the record changes it so you can't hear the difference" or "Your hearing probably sucks." I agree. You can't trust anyone's hearing. I do not trust my own which is why I like running these silly experiments. Digitizing the music at 24/192 is invisible. It sounds just like a turntable, warts and all.

@chakster, I think Reed's marketing on the 3P is a bit misleading. If you look closely the vertical bearing is two points like the more expensive Origin live arms. The horizonal bearing is an upper hanging single point pulled into alignment by attracting magnets at the bottom. Since the upper bearing can be shifted horizontally azimuth can be adjusted. It has a great magnetic antiskating mechanism. It is a 3 point arm which is going to have more friction than a single point arm. Obviously it is a lot more stable. It is a very clever set up and I do not really care for it. The Arm I like the most is the 2G. The 2G has better geometry. It is a neutral balance arm and the vertical bearings are down at record level. It has fewer resonant structures. The 3P is quite complicated. 

@atmasphere, The Schroder CB's bearings are ceramic, even harder. It is reported to have the lowest friction of any captured bearing arm made. Whether that is true or not I can't say but it is a very sensitive arm and it will move with just the air currents in the room. I balanced the arm out so that it floats to set antiskating and had to turn the AC off. In spite of it being perfectly level it kept wanting to head towards the air return. Turning the AC off stopped it. Never had that happen before. The antiskating is also magnetic eliminating another bearing or friction creating device. 

I've done that very thing! Had to grind the bit to give it a new edge.