It's no secret that the majority of my customers find themselves with either Kuzma or Schröder tonearms.
Both designers pay meticulous attention to resonance control and energy transfer, and the result is that their designs excel at rendering subtle and dramatic dynamic shadings with a startling sense of realism.
Over the years, I've fielded questions about the ergonomic/handling features of both tonearms ...
With the Kuzma 4Points and all Schröders, absence of a finger lift is missed by many. Strictly speaking, the 4Points have a small, screw-in finger lift, but I've found them to result in riskier handling of the tonearm than leaving it uninstalled, so let's agree that it has no finger lift.
Its elimination is a result of both designers addressing as many sources of spurious resonances as possible, and most individuals quickly adapt to the absence of a finger lift.
Schröder takes this a step further, with the elimination of an arm rest. While this isn't a "show stopper", I've fielded questions about this from many customers.
I'm currently performing a setup for a customer's Garrard 301 implementation, and this question arose.
The solution I arrived at isn't universal, but it works very well with this slate plinth from SMD Acoustics (Peak HiFi), and I think the customer will be very happy with it.
The good news is that our Galbier Mk II armboards have room for this implementation as well, and all future Galibier armboards for Schröders will include this feature. Contact us if you'd like to retrofit this into your current Galibier armboard.
The support pillar is fabricated from 3/8" diameter, stainless steel, and is firmly anchored to the armboard, so resonance is well-controlled.
One hidden benefit of the arm rest is that the cueing support platform can be re-oriented so that it spans further into the record label area. It's a small benefit, but can potentially help for that one in a thousand record where the tonearm may careen past the runout groove and into the record label area.