Hi. I've had my vpi prime for quite some time. It has a second generation printed tonearm. Maybe third? Anyhow I recently changed carts and noticed that the top of my headshell and arm are not level with each other. To level the headshell I need to drop the pivot point so the arm is quite tilted. Also the top of the headshell is convex. This makes sra very difficult. It appears to have bubbled up around the slot at the back. Do these arms degenrate over time? Has anyone else noticed this? I did send vpi some pics late last week.
Yes, there have been some isolated issues that you have described. My suggestion would be to call VPI's customer service.