No lifting by the edges, no bending-flexing, remembering to lift the entire protractor straight up.Bending and flexing aren't possible. It's a sturdy sheet of glass. Lifting straight up? It's such a snug fit on the spindle there's no other choice. Swinging it back and forth while nudging upward/downward near the spindle works best.
CAUTION: Take care to not move the protractor or tonearm when the stylus is down on the plastic sheet. The tip can hold on and that would stess the cantilever and/or damage the sheet.
TIP: If your tonearm has VTA adjustment, remember to raise it to compensate for the thickness. You want to align with the cartridge at a normal playing angle.
This valuable thread (agreeing with Stiltskin) has also proved what we all knew, that a tangential tracking arm has the potential to be superior to any pivoting arm. Even with "perfect" alignment all we've done is managed tracking angle error. We've not eliminated it. Users of top end tangential arms are smiling while sharing knowing winks. ;-)
Further Minty observations:
Paul reports speaker integration for the first time. His favorite chair is way off center so he never listens for imaging. From that position we've always heard two distinct speakers, no center image. After Minting there's some center image integration happening for the first time.
After 2-3 sides my ears told me I could reduce anti-skating. I went from 3 little O-rings on the A/S dogleg to 2 and had the impression I still had a hair too much. Last night I reduced to 1 O-ring and even very dynamic LP's tracked perfectly. Another benefit of the Mint, since reducing A/S always improves cartridge performance. :-)
