Flag Doohickey to Indicate Status of Tonearm Lever

For years I used an arm that didn’t have a cuing lever. There is a rod on a post to rest it on when not on a record. At one point I bought an aftermarket cuing lever for it and it worked OK but did have a slight effect on sound quality and by then I’d got used to manual cuing and plucking the arm off the record at the end of the side.

My next arm does have a lever and usually no finger lift (I have one cartridge plate out of four that has one attached), I leave the lever in the up position when not playing a record. A while ago the cuing device started slowly sinking from the up position over about a minute or two I think due to an airlock. The arm builder, Frank Schröder, sent me a replacement but the first one got lost in the post so this took a while. It is possible to manually cue without a finger lift but it takes two hands, one resting on the plinth to the steady the other while lowering the arm. I probably couldn’t do it on a plinth less deck.

Since the sinking episode I’ve got in the habit of checking which way the lever is pointing before moving the arm.

@yeti42 , if you send me your plates I can install finger lifts for you. If you check out my system page you will see a Schroder CB that has a finger lift. I made that one.

Also, it is not a good idea to leave the finger lift lever up. That leaves the internal spring in the stretched position and it might weaken over time.

I hardly ever use the finger lift. I cue the record by hand and have an auto lifer at the end. I would think that the lever position should be an adequate "flag." You can always paint it international orange:)

Put a small piece of red tape on the end of the cue lever. This will help you notice whether it’s up or down. After 20 or so years, you won’t need the red flag.

@mijostyn , thank you but my current cartridge, SPU Royal N, sounds best when the screw securing the plate to the wand is just tight enough to hold it’s position!, less than 2Ncm if I can believe my torque driver, which I don’t at that level. The counterweight grub screw is also easy to over tighten, I spent a long time optimising both. I don’t need to add leverage to my brass plate. 

The reference arm is a pain in the arse to set up and worth every bit of it.

@yeti42 , I'm not sure what that has to do with a finger lift but you certainly do not want to over tighten anything on that arm. Just snug is enough. Never us more than your thumb and index finger on the screwdriver. 

Peter Ledermann is another Frank Schroder fan. He has at least 4 Schroder Reference arms in his studio (and one CB).