Turntable advice / opinion on setup / sound.

I have no experience with the Holbo.  The concern with required force to move the arm has to do with the lack of mechanical advantage of a pivot that rotates the arm; with an air bearing arm, the arm has to be dragged to its new position.  This may be more of a theoretical than an actual issue, but owners of some air bearing arms have reported suspension and cantilever failures.  
 

Such arms tend to have very high horizontal effective mass and much lower vertical effective mass.  Some claim this is a problem while others say this is a virtue.  On some records with very deep bass, the bass is mixed closer to mono to reduce vertical modulation; this means wider horizontal movement.  Higher effective mass and the lack of movement as a pivot means that the arm resists horizontal movement from groove modulation meaning that the full bass signal will be picked up by the cartridge and not lost by the cartridge moving side to side.  I don’t know if this is the case, but the airbearing arms I had delivered very powerful bass.

@billstevenson 

IF I was going to champion a ’rigid’ design, no arm height adjustability, I would do a survey of various cartridge heights, then:

1. pick an average. sell all the 3 point cartridges you can peddle.

use Rega designed/approved shims under the arm mount, or above the cartridge for taller or shorter cartridges. Split shims for the base so the arm does not need to be completely removed. 

It’s purposely making it shorter than ALL other cartridges that I object to.

’ALL Other’ until Ortofon answered the need to make 14mm high versions. Thankfully for the OP, because that is what he chose.

And, the lack of measurements to properly mount non-rega cartridges bugs me.

Many things bug me, thankfully more things make me happy, two among them is the easy on the fly height adjustment of two of my tonearms.

My aren't we touchy today?

Rega turntables are not for everyone!

@larryi 

On some records with very deep bass, the bass is mixed closer to mono to reduce vertical modulation; this means wider horizontal movement

I did not know that!

Obviously at lower frequencies both channels tend to converge in modulation.  I am not sure why horizontal stylus vibration should be seen as preferable to vertical, either, except that is how mono records were cut.  May be better for Decca cartridges, which are asymmetric!

In deference to @billstevenson I won't mention the name of my main deck, but when combined with a DS Audio optical cartridge, also renowned for deep bass, and a Velodyne 18" servo-controlled subwoofer the results are easily the best and tightest I have heard from any reproducing chain, anywhere.

I think it is very difficult to produce a good linear tracking system, so I am not surprised some have a tendency to over-stress cantilevers, etc.  The very first cartridge I installed in my linear tracker should have been quite unsuitable, but it was at hand while I waited for something more suitable.  It was a high-compliance Shure V15 tracking at about a gram!  It had no problems shifting the horizontal arm mass of under 50 grams including cartridge (which is of course very low for linear tracking designs).