before I answer you, it's only fair to point out that there are many aspects to a 'whole' tone arm design and we are only talking about one of them. so when we try to compare designs maybe there is compensating benefits in other areas which equal overall better performance. in any case, I am not inferring anything in terms of 'best' or superiority of performance. we need side by side comparisons to get into that stuff.....especially at these levels of performance.
all that said; the negative effect of compromised VTA adjusting designs mostly has to do with overall precision and focus. when I play my most delicate and texturally interesting recordings there is another level of information and suspension of disbelief. the fog lifts just that little bit more. like a fine focus on a camera lens. obviously there are steps and degrees of this. and maybe out there an even better approach than what I'm hearing exists.
I'm only commenting based on my observations over a few years of tone arm development with the Durand tone arms. he used my room for testing a few dozen times and so I was able to observe various approaches to solving this problem, both mechanically and in terms of metallurgy and material.
Thank you Mike, your so well measured reply makes perfect sense to me. I wished we could hear all those different designs side by side. An impossibility of course, especially where I live and I am also just a tad too old, to travel around like our friend Bonzo, so often enough I have to rely on the opinion of others, whose ears I hopefully think to know and trust.