@lewm thanks for your reply, all reasonable points. Yes, I agree such small changes in VTA shouldn’t matter. And I have no standing to question Michael Fremer. I had the pleasure of meeting him once at a demo, he’s quite funny in person.
My point, I guess, was that others here and elsewhere noted that the Nagaoka MP-500 is sensitive to VTA in their systems. That’s one reason I opted for the MP-300 initially, because I thought the “Superfine polished elliptical bonded diamond” stylus would be less fiddley than the more sophisticated stylus on the MP-500. My experience is that the MP-300 is more sensitive than the Audio Technica cartridge with a Shibata stylus it is replacing. The Nagaoka also sounds noticeably better, especially when the VTA is dialed. YMMV.
kn