Tone arm set up and cartridge alignment are a lot simpler and easier than they are made out to be. Its really just a question of moving methodically through a series of steps. Once you understand the reasoning behind the steps no single step is all that difficult.
Briefly, you first locate the center of the arm at the correct distance from the spindle, according to the arm. Then you mount the arm and very roughly eyeball the arm height. Mount the cartridge and rough set overhang, zenith, VTF and VTA. The reason for "rough set" is changing any one of these changes the others. Moving the cartridge changes tracking force, etc. So you go back and forth a few times, you get the hang of it, pretty soon its all too close to matter and you are done.
That's the short and sweet of it. Next if this sounds like something you want to do, Michael Fremer has a couple really excellent videos on YouTube where he walks you through the whole thing step by step in real time. Highly recommended! Except I would add, some of the stuff he uses like Wally protractor, trust me you can do just fine without. Honestly there are on-line templates you can download and print that work just fine. If you are going to buy something though the one I would recommend is the MoFi GeoDisc. Fairly inexpensive at $50 it is really well thought out and makes setup a lot easier than most of the other stuff out there.
A couple tips I don't think even Fremer covers. A Q-tip placed on the platter just right will support the cartridge just high enough to save it in case you bobble. If your cartridge is threaded its easy but if it uses nuts then a rubber band works great as a third hand to hold the cartridge on the head shell while you get the nuts started. Fremer has all the rest more than covered. Enjoy!
