"Vinyl Nerds" , "Noisy connections" , "Audio Grifters" , "Grounding" , phew !
Well it's quite a contraversy you're bringing back from the Grave , all these things we oldsters coped with over the years of Vinyl ( may it rest in Peace and Garage Sale $1.00 ea. Bins ) .
It kinda is your fault Mr.Baldr , you lads had to go and produce a cheap RIAA Amp box , join the Vinyl resurgence , stand with Art Dudley at the Alter of True Believers , get further Press coverage for making a REALLY nice Stocking Stuffer to make Roy Hall's Starter Set Turntable into a working "High-End" Audiophile hook-up .
Except nowadays the believers can reach you lads for advice ( you could never get into touch will Bill Johnson at ARC or most of the other Electronic Designers ) . I suppose you're trying to head them off with the above posting but I don't think it's anywhere enough hand holding , there is way more grief coming your way if you persist in this Vinyl venture of yours . But you know this , don't you ? , you made vinyl stuff so you know all the way around this issue , good luck but I think you've opened a can of worms . Calling your customers : "Vinyl Nerds" isn't a good start .
"Noisy Connections" , Now there's one , for sure !! I took a number of head shell leads and RCA phono interconnects back to my lab and put them on my Thermocouple Potentiometer , oh-my , those things give off voltage , from dissimular metal contacting , very small potentials , certainly but audible . The techs still have Cramolin which works , not perfect but it does work , kinda . Better than nothing . At the very low voltages of Moving Coil Phono Carts ( the Ortofon in particular ) contact voltage is audible , the good news is that Tubes do a good job of masking contact noise with their own noise and graininess , not a perfect world , what else can be done ?
What else can be done opens the door to the "Audio Grifters" , what else you ask ? , plenty : Tip-toes , Sorbothane , interconnects with directional arrows on them ( one way only please ) , vacuum platters , litz wires , gold plating , Alum. head shell screws ( 3 in a triangular mounting ) , Variable voltage Power transformers , star grounding , better pre-amps ( of course , this is what Stereophile helps with ) , and on and on and on , all the way in time till digital comes along and ends the madness ! Which takes us to today .
Now we have our iMac being the Turntable ( playing iTunes lossless ) , our DAC ( preferably a Schiit DAC ) becomes our Phono Cartridge transducer ( not at all quirky or finicky ) transforming all those bits into beautiful music that we can take to a Park Bench if we want or run thru a nice little musical Amp like the Asgard 2 into headphones or GENELEC Studio Monitors and Viola , we have a near perfect musical world , at last ! We finally made it , phew , it took me from the early 1950s and the first 33 Mono Vinyl till a couple of years ago to get this far . I'll tell you right now , I'm not going back ! Not for Nobody nor any money , no-how !!
I've admired you lads at Schiit , building the price accessible stuff like you do , supporting a new crop of music lovers , avoiding the Dealer / Sales Rep. marketing , delivering "reliable" non-quirky componants . I'm not alone in this , I see your stuff in all the Headphone Club coverages and I email fellow Schiit owners from all over the World , I see you as rising up to the Boothroyd Stewart , Igor Levin , dcs and even MSB level .
Then , out of the blue , you dilute your efforts with Vinyl doings - was dieses ist ?
A vinyl pre and a microphonic amp , I hope this trend ends , I have such hopes for you .
I remain a Schiit Man , maybe not loyal to the end but a Schiit Man ,
Tony in Michigan
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