Ketchup,
I am just pocking some fun at myself and the concept of this thread. If you are an outsider and read this it is truly entertaining in a comedic sense.
As for the $1500 diamond scale? I am in the jewelry business. I setup retail operations and run them. I have diamond scales but trust me they can't be used to setup a tonearm. I do use calibration weights for the diamond scale. And use a $79 scale for my cartridge. And do use calibration weights for that as well. Guess what, I have used the little $79 stylus scale to weigh some other things and it has been very effective. I also have a very nice loop w. a light built in that is effective to examine my stylus. Finally I have my jewelers often help out w. some projects like Rhodium tipping connectors, or changing the length of cartridge screws when they are too long. Lucky that I can integrate my work w. my hobby.
But don't you feel at a certain point we are going too far, myself included. One thing happened to me tonight. We just finished installing some doors and frames and you put a nice level in the hands of a neophyte and he doesn't know how to use it is fairly useless. It was funny to see the contractors yelling at each other about where to check the level and how to hold it etc. I see to many people go nuts about tonearm setup without listening to the results. I can hear when VTF is off with my cartridges. For me it is that easy. Slow sound, or mistracking in the highs. And changes in VTA/SRA do change VTF. Most don't get that. And honestly HTA isn't near as important and we spend tons of $ on adjusting equipment for what really is minimal and often ignore the more important parameters.
