I respectfully disagree. Even in the highly scientific field of medicine, most practitioners will readily agree that practicing medicine is both a science and an art. Put four cardiologists in a room with an 80 year old man clearly suffering from congestive heart disease and then have them write down their suggested approach individually and compare notes afterward. They will all have different opinions as to the many possible diuretics, dietary regimens, additional testing, other medications, etc. I know this first-hand. I have been practicing med-mal defense for a long time. So we are discussing sound reproduction not from the standpoint of recording, but home play-back. To think that engineering and science can account for 100% or even 95% of how well a given tonearm design works is ignoring the obvious; the final arbiter is how it sounds and science and engineering can not entirely predict or answer why a given design sounds the way it does. And on that principle-yes we go round and round. There has been much talk about comparing a 9" and a 12" arm of the same manufacturer. That too is problematic. A given design like the SAT arm may very well sound best in its 9" format but that does not mean that a differently designed 12" arm can not sound every bit as good. I have followed Mike Fremer's writing for close to 30 years and he is as human as the rest of us. He can get carried away with his praise for a product he loves. He loves the SAT arm and he has a belief about the superiority of 9" arms that he expressed even before he discovered the SAT. I happen to think his conclusion that the arms he loves are superior largely due to their length is one of those, "yes, but that is only part of the story and your conclusion begs the question" type of scenarios. It is human to place attribution towards something you love; to say "I love my Tesla and it far superior to any driving experience I have had with any other car, it is obviously due to Elon Musk's engineering of electric motors". For someone of his stature to express it was worthy of comment in my humble opinion. I think someone else brought this up too, but MF's preference for 9" arms is no different than someone else's preference for state of the art direct drive tables. Those that espouse the virtues of direct drive can point to science too. That doesn't mean that those that prefer the sound character of idlers or belt drive are wrong. It does not mean that idlers and belt drive are objectively inferior.