Hi Rangeball!

My pool is Still at 340 Alk and I havent bothered to lower it.
Water is 'crystal' clear and no scaling problems.

My CA hardness is quite low...almost 0.
PH stabalizes at ~7.8 but I try to knock it down to 7.4 every few days.

My TDS is quite high due to the SWG. At around 3000 TDS currently.

Hope that helps, I've been happy with the pool and the alk hasnt bothered me a bit.