No, you read that right. Sweet Vinyl is the name of the company and the yet to be released product is called Sugar Cube.
This is a analog to digital and digital to analog converter with a DSP in the middle that is programmed to find and remove LP clicks and pops.
They had a phone app that would let you hear the original, the original without pops and click and most importantly, just the pop and glitches it had removed! The latter was super cool because you could listen to it at elevated levels to see if there was any music in it. I did that and with my ear in front of the speaker I could hear the the full music playing. No, that didn't mean it was broken. They were using an analog mixer and the source was bleeding into it.
As far as I could tell, it was achieving full transparency. AB switches between raw and processed showed no difference.
The device is also a turnkey ripping platform for LPs. Plug in a thumb drive, hard disk or network share and it will rip the LP to the it with full metadata! They created the metadata themselves so that it is LP specific. It needed two tracks to detect the LP.
The device ships around summer and retails for $2,000. Given that it is a DAC/ADC just the same, I think it is a very nice product.
Reaction from LP fans though was amazing to me. The one guy was shocked that anyone would want to remove the pops and clicks. "It is not LP anymore!" The what??? Pops and Clicks are what remind of you a live performance?
I was at another booth of a major Japanese company and I suggested they should OEM this product and sell it under their name. Again, the person was shocked at the suggestion of someone wanting to remove pops and clicks from an LP. Call me lost .
This is a analog to digital and digital to analog converter with a DSP in the middle that is programmed to find and remove LP clicks and pops.
They had a phone app that would let you hear the original, the original without pops and click and most importantly, just the pop and glitches it had removed! The latter was super cool because you could listen to it at elevated levels to see if there was any music in it. I did that and with my ear in front of the speaker I could hear the the full music playing. No, that didn't mean it was broken. They were using an analog mixer and the source was bleeding into it.
As far as I could tell, it was achieving full transparency. AB switches between raw and processed showed no difference.
The device is also a turnkey ripping platform for LPs. Plug in a thumb drive, hard disk or network share and it will rip the LP to the it with full metadata! They created the metadata themselves so that it is LP specific. It needed two tracks to detect the LP.
The device ships around summer and retails for $2,000. Given that it is a DAC/ADC just the same, I think it is a very nice product.
Reaction from LP fans though was amazing to me. The one guy was shocked that anyone would want to remove the pops and clicks. "It is not LP anymore!" The what??? Pops and Clicks are what remind of you a live performance?
I was at another booth of a major Japanese company and I suggested they should OEM this product and sell it under their name. Again, the person was shocked at the suggestion of someone wanting to remove pops and clicks from an LP. Call me lost .