I have an early-2000's Brompton with a 3-speed Sachs hub. The hub works ok for the most part, even though not as smoothly as modern hubs do, but I'm putting most of the blame on the antiquated Torpedo shifter.

I will be building new wheels soon, and I thought this might be a good chance to replace the hub, ideally with something with a wider range. I read a bit about the available hub options, from the factory 6-speed combo to Rohloff, Alfine, and Nexus applications. I think I would be fine with the 256% range of the Sturmey Archer S-RF5(W).

I keep reading though, those new 5-speed hubs are fiddly to set up and require occasional re-alignment. I was wondering if there were any users of those hubs here who could confirm they actually came across those issues with theirs, or was it just a third-hand opinion people repeat.

Thanks for any advice.