Seems most of the painting I do requires a gallon of paint or less, but I
still what to use my airless.

I'm thinking of making a simple gallon hopper to replace the pickup tube,
and buying a shorter material hose to save material. I think a 15' hose
would be fine for most of my purposes. But when I mentioned this to a spray
equipment guy, he insisted I would need to keep at least 25' for dampening
the power pulses from my pump, or it greatly shorten the life of my
diaphragm. My airless is a diaphragm type CH 3/4 hp, .44 GPM.

Does anyone else have any actual experience with shorter material hoses? I
understand his reasoning, but I just can't see why the relief valve in the
pump would not be adequate for dampening the power pulses.