Schitt Sol Turntable

[watchnerd]

Yes, indeed, and that's my point. Are you going to measure the inner and outer track radii of each record, factor in genre, and then realign the cartridge each time? Or even, if you have a "classical" session one day and a "rock" session on another, change it each time? And this bearing in mind the inherent distortion, inaccuracy of internal cartridge build, dust on records, dirt on stylus, etc.?

Anyway, Rega and Linn have decided what works for most, while still allowing dissenters to use only 2-hole mounting if they insist, or for carts with only that option. SME have a different take, using holes not slots and a sliding bed-plate, a system with its own alignment issues. I just think the free-for-all we've always had with vinyl has been the cause of far more alignment errors than any standardised geometry would've been.

Well, I don't listen to rock on LP, so if you force a "rock friendly" alignment on me, with no option to switch, I'm not going to buy your TT.

And, yes, FWIW, I do switch alignments depending upon the medium, but it's not hard to do with the SME. I also switch to mono carts for mono records. So I'm a weirdo.

3-hole is good for newbies or people who don't want to even know what alignment is or means.

But it's also not necessary, as Technics have proven with their super-simple overhang calculator, or Pro-Ject with their pre-aligned 2-hole carts that do just fine for entry level.

 

[watchnerd]

The very fact that this contraption elicited so far 79 posts is proof that Schitt knows marketing.

If one needs a much better TT , for less than at the asking price, go to e-Bay and get a Japanese DD circa 75~85 ..

e.g
Denon DP-57L

View attachment 32907

I don't think Schiit is marketing to people who want good turntables.

They're marketing to people who want weird Schiit.

 

[anmpr1]

No, nothing at all wrong with OEM, per se.

Back in the day, a lot of product was similar among brands. For example, the Grace 940 unipivot arm was very similar (at least in outward appearance) to the Audiocraft AC-300. Some Audio Technica (and Denon) arms were very similar to what Jelco is selling, today. I believe the old Koetsu arm was a Jelco. Electro-mechanical damping arms from Sony-Denon-Victor Japan were essentially identical. I've heard it said how Micro-Seiki made a lot of tonearm product for other companies. My guess is that tooling/manufacturing for this sort of thing only made sense for a few companies to do it, and then they'd farm out their designs as special order projects.

 

[JJB70]

At the risk of sounding cynical (and I'm not a cynical person), if Schiit have been unable to get the basics of mechanical manufacturing right for relatively simple assembly tasks such as earthing the casework I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them banging out a turntable which is basically about reasonably high precision manufacturing.

 

[watchnerd]

Back in the day, a lot of product was similar among brands. For example, the Grace 940 unipivot arm was very similar (at least in outward appearance) to the Audiocraft AC-300. Some Audio Technica (and Denon) arms were very similar to what Jelco is selling, today. I believe the old Koetsu arm was a Jelco. Electro-mechanical damping arms from Sony-Denon-Victor Japan were essentially identical. I've heard it said how Micro-Seiki made a lot of tonearm product for other companies. My guess is that tooling/manufacturing for this sort of thing only made sense for a few companies to do it, and then they'd farm out their designs as special order projects.

Yes, still pretty true for gimbal arms, I believe.

But uni-pivots seem a different story. In addition the Sol minimalist uni-pivots, you have all the VPI 3D printed arms.

 

[watchnerd]

At the risk of sounding cynical (and I'm not a cynical person), if Schiit have been unable to get the basics of mechanical manufacturing right for relatively simple assembly tasks such as earthing the casework I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them banging out a turntable which is basically about reasonably high precision manufacturing.

But at least it's probably safer / won't catch fire / electrocute you if it sucks?

 

[anmpr1]

The very fact that this contraption elicited so far 79 posts is proof that Schitt knows marketing.

If one needs a much better TT , for less than at the asking price, go to e-Bay and get a Japanese DD circa 75~85 ..

e.g
Denon DP-57L

View attachment 32907

One of the problems of some nice looking Japan decks is not the turntable itself, but the basic 'frame'. I owned a couple of JVC (QLY55/66) turntables (similar to the Denon DP-57), and while the arm and platter/motors were fine, the glossy laminate base was quite resonant; obviously made for looks over sound. The old Kenwood (500 series) 'rock' tables were some of the first Japanese turntables to address the issue of structural solidity, at a reasonable price point. They are probably worth searching out as a good alternative to the current crop of inexpensive belt drive record players.

One of the best 'sounding' tables I ever owned was an el-cheapo Denon DP-30L, which used the Kenwood type of resin compound for a base. I'm pretty sure the arm was a Jelco OEM. With a Denon DL-103D cartridge it sounded fine. At the same time I owned a Denon DP-75 and matching base, but the base was a laminated block of wood, relatively lightweight and acoustically resonant. Not ideal. The actual 'sound' was not as good as the concrete resin DP-30. I'm sure that taking the turntable out of its wood base and putting it into something more solid would have done the trick.

Mitch Cotter took the SP-10 and DP-80 decks, stripped them of their bases, removed their electronics, and installed them in his custom blue base. They were ugly as hell, but anyone who remembers them said they were sonically sound. Sao Win modded the SP-10, took out some of the electronics, and put it into his Lucite base (think the Canadian Oracle, which design Sao Win claimed Oracle stole from him after visiting his lab). That was supposed to have had good results, too. But Cotter and Win were money funnels.

Back to reality, the Technics SL-1200 Mk2 series was pretty good in this regard. Panasonic attempted to damp out resonances using heavy rubber all around, even on the underside of the platter.

In context, this Schiitt looks really flimsy, overall. But I don't want to be unfair to it. Maybe it's engineered as good as their DACs. Sorry, couldn't help it...

 

[LTig]

I think the theory is that you want low torque so that minimal vibration gets to the platter but you need a heavy platter for speed stability which needs a lot of torque to overcome stiction and inertia so a nudge is what's required to fill the gap. The alternative is electronic control which starts with high torque and then automatically ramps it down as the required speed is reached.

That's what the Lingo PS for the LP12 does.

 

[AudioSceptic]

A unipivot bearing allows the arm to rotate this way and that around the pivot axis, which has to cause a commensurate (and unwanted) stylus rotation within the groove. The most successful unipivots seemed to have been oil damped (silicon gunk), such as the Audiocraft, Formula 4, Kieth Monks (which used a mercury bath), and a few others.

Unipivots often have the advantage of quick armtube removal and replacement, but at what cost and tradeoff? Compare the engineering behind this, along with fit and finish, with something like the old Technics EPA 500 system, or the Micro 505 system (which allowed tonearm tube change), and laugh. I don't mean laugh at it (although you could), but laugh at it because it's cheap and will probably be fun, for a new user. It's the perfect Schiitt product.

You are correct in that the tonearm design is simply an inexpensive price point thing. But so is the entire deck. It looks cheaply built overall (except the carbon fiber armtube, which is impressive), lightweight, and you have to wonder how long it will last, in home use? Reviewers will likely praise it for its slam, pace and timing. Or maybe they will just say it's a cheap compromise at a price point. We'll see.

I'm not a unipivot fan. I can't get over the fact that they wobble so easily, and any damping can only reduce it, not eliminate it.

We'll have to see if the Sol surprises us but there is already so much competition out there.

 

[AudioSceptic]

That's what the Lingo PS for the LP12 does.

Yes, I know, that's what I have. I'd be surprised if this isn't common practice now.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I'd go for one chosen by experts who should be involved in defining the international standard, if such a thing was going to happen. If such a thing was done decades ago then part of the circle of confusion in mastering and playback would be sort of controlled by now.

Quite, but I think that the different alignments are not the real problem. Buy an arm for £2k, and a cartridge for same, made to amazing precision out of unobtainium, and then align them by... eye. Usually no parallel straight sides on the cartridge, if you can even see them from above, and very rarely a headshell which helps. No micrometer for fine adjustments, and no "presets" for the different alignments. Slide the cartridge to change the overhang, swivel it in the slots to adjust the offset, find the overhang has changed, adjust that again, go back to the offset, etc., etc. Tighten the screws/bolts and hope that nothing moves while you do that. Then move onto VTF, bias, and VTA...

 

[AudioSceptic]

Linn does the same with the Ekos arm and the Krystal and Kandid cartridges.

All their top MCs since the Troika in 1986.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Well, I don't listen to rock on LP, so if you force a "rock friendly" alignment on me, with no option to switch, I'm not going to buy your TT.

And, yes, FWIW, I do switch alignments depending upon the medium, but it's not hard to do with the SME. I also switch to mono carts for mono records. So I'm a weirdo.

3-hole is good for newbies or people who don't want to even know what alignment is or means.

But it's also not necessary, as Technics have proven with their super-simple overhang calculator, or Pro-Ject with their pre-aligned 2-hole carts that do just fine for entry level.

Don't the SME arms have a fixed offset with 2 holes, not slots, or is there some leeway there?

 

[Frank Dernie]

except the carbon fiber armtube, which is impressive)

That may be one of the least expensive bits, but CF seems to be used to imply high tech these days. CF is good for a lot of purposes not necessarily for arms (and 3-D printed even less well suited but modern).

 

[watchnerd]

Don't the SME arms have a fixed offset with 2 holes, not slots, or is there some leeway there?

It depends which model you're looking at.

For example, the M2-9R has a completely removable headshell of the standard 'SME type collar'. While the headshell supplied by SME has no slots, other choices can.

 

[watchnerd]

Quite, but I think that the different alignments are not the real problem. Buy an arm for £2k, and a cartridge for same, made to amazing precision out of unobtainium, and then align them by... eye. Usually no parallel straight sides on the cartridge, if you can even see them from above, and very rarely a headshell which helps. No micrometer for fine adjustments, and no "presets" for the different alignments. Slide the cartridge to change the overhang, swivel it in the slots to adjust the offset, find the overhang has changed, adjust that again, go back to the offset, etc., etc. Tighten the screws/bolts and hope that nothing moves while you do that. Then move onto VTF, bias, and VTA...

This is the paradox of vinyl.

If you want real precision, don't bother, go digital. You'll go nuts trying to make vinyl perfect....not to mention the variable quality of the medium itself.

However, if you're too sloppy (where 'too sloppy' is proportional to stylus sophistication), vinyl sounds bad.

 

[watchnerd]

Apparently Schiit doesn't know the effective mass of the tonearm, which seems odd after years in development:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-3348#post-15168102

 

[garbulky]

Apparently Schiit doesn't know the effective mass of the tonearm, which seems odd after years in development:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-3348#post-15168102

Jason doesn't know. Mike is the guy who's done it.

 

[watchnerd]

Jason doesn't know. Mike is the guy who's done it.

And you know Mike knows it?

Jason is also the one responsible for the website and specs that go there. You'd think they would have put it up there to begin with.

Lastly, "Mike worked on it" isn't really an excuse; they're the business owners, the buck stops with them. I don't see other TT makers saying "oh we don't know this spec cause the guy who worked on it for years didn't tell the rest of the company yet."

 

[AudioSceptic]

It depends which model you're looking at.

For example, the M2-9R has a completely removable headshell of the standard 'SME type collar'. While the headshell supplied by SME has no slots, other choices can.

Which one(s) do you have?