[Byronb]

Following the 'jury of your peers' logic would mean that a representation of @bcowen 's jury would be...

LOL...Now that is funny.

 

[tincanear]

Following the 'jury of your peers' logic would mean that a representation of @bcowen 's jury would be...

@Ripper2860 @bcowen I find it interesting that despite you guys living in different states over a thousand miles apart, that you have mutual cousins. Please post a pic of the four of you guys at the family reunion :0 :0

 

[KoshNaranek]

@Ripper2860 @bcowen I find it interesting that despite you guys living in different states over a thousand miles apart, that you have mutual cousins. Please post a pic of the four of you guys at the family reunion :0 :0

LOL!

That was a Zinger!

 

[bcowen]

@Ripper2860 @bcowen I find it interesting that despite you guys living in different states over a thousand miles apart, that you have mutual cousins. Please post a pic of the four of you guys at the family reunion :0 :0

And that was even funnier.

 

[porchwizard]

That Elvis is still alive.

Elvis and Jim Morrison are forming a revival band

 

[r2muchstuff]

Elvis and Jim Morrison are forming a revival band

I understand the Jimmy Hendrix and John Prine are joining up.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Wasn’t it in this thread that somebody linked to a website that described an experiment with a distortion box? IIRC the guy built a box that could increase or decrease second-harmonic distortion at will, and verified that increased second-harmonic distortion was very euphonic. The high gain setting in amps measures worse and, to the best of my knowledge, it does especially so in the second harmonic department. This would explain why high gain is often perceived as better sounding.

Nelson Pass is the guy. Here's a couple of links, 2 versions of the same article:
https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/the-pass-h2-harmonic-generator/
http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_h2_v1.pdf

 

[Ripper2860]

@Ripper2860 @bcowen I find it interesting that despite you guys living in different states over a thousand miles apart, that you have mutual cousins. Please post a pic of the four of you guys at the family reunion :0 :0

In @bcowen 's defense, while they are cousins, they are from his wife's side of the family. Ironically Bill's wife is a dental hygienist, but that's neither here nor there.

Technically, the two fine upstanding gentlemen pictured are my step-cousins, as I have recently found out that I was accidentally switched at birth and taken home by a coal mining family. While my upbringing in a W. Va coal town was a rather happy one, I unfortunately share no genetic material with these jovial and distinguished gentlemen. They do seem to be a real hoot to hang with, however.

 

[r2muchstuff]

Mid week isolation story:

We have a friend who remarried.
Yesterday was her third anniversary.
She made a good choice this time

Pre virus we had discussed getting together, maybe at a B&B somewhere.
Instead we called them via face time (their first face time session ever).
Two hours of manhattan mods, discussions, stories, laughter and ... dancing
They played they're wedding slow dance song, we played "Carolina Girls" for some shagging action.
So once again friends and music make the day.

They made us promise to do this again next week.

Stay safe,
Enjoy the music

 

[A Jedi]

Is there a solid state alternative to the tube in the Saga +? Something like the old LISSTs? I rarely use the tube buffer so would prefer to not waste the tube.

 

[Zojokkeli]

Week three or four of isolation. Listening to music and getting drunk with friends over Skype.

 

[roadcykler]

Week three or four of isolation. Listening to music and getting drunk with friends over Skype.

Nice speakers. I bet that plant on the left grows better than other ones you might have.

 

[Zojokkeli]

Nice speakers. I bet that plant on the left grows better than other ones you might have.

I’ve actually replaced most of my hifi equipment over these past few weeks. I got the speakers last week and the amp earlier this week.
I don’t know anything about the plants, I’ve only ever owned a dead cactus before I met my girlfriend.

 

[ctbarker32]

2020, Chapter 5:
Hooray for Space Grease!

Okay, so I’ve been asked what changed between the First Production Sol and the Non-FUBAR Sol we are now selling.

A reasonable question.

The problem is, I haven’t been 100% in the middle of this, because I use Qobuz. Yes, it is a personality defect. Ask Mike. He’s back. He’ll confirm that I am (a) lazy, (b) not musically discriminative, and (c) digitally oriented.

So, I went and talked to Tyler, who has been the driving force behind Sol coming back. Maybe because he has a hipster beard. Maybe not.

So, here’s the deal, in a nutshell: we fixed the things we bonerized, we tried a bunch of things, we kept some of them that worked, and we discovered space grease.

Yes, space lube. More on that later. Thanks, David.


The Boned Stuff

Most of Sol’s teething problems could be traced to three issues:

(1) Variable platter/bearing machining, leading to platter wobble while the turntable was playing.
(2) Variable pivot cup machining, leading to the unipivot not working like a unipivot, but more a duopivot or tripivot, or something else equally undesirous.
(3) A tonearm headshell that, when combined with our cartridge wiring, crowded many popular cartridges.

In the case of machining, note the use of “variable.” As in, some were OK. Some weren’t. We cleaned up the pivot cup and platter bearing machining pretty early, and that solved a lot of the mechanical issues.

Now, all Sols are measured with a runout indicator to +/-0.006” to keep runout well below that of a typical record.

The tonearm headshell being too short was solved by (you guessed it), a longer headshell. All arms now use the longer headshell, which provides clearance for pretty much any cartridge.


The Experimental Stuff

In addition to fixing the stuff that was actually screwed up, we attempted to address the following problems:

(1) Belt wobble. There were complaints about the belts walking up and down on the platter.
(2) Walking of the motor pod on its three feet, plus mechanical coupling between the motor and turntable. There were also complaints about motor noise being transmitted to the turntable.
(3) Difficulty in setting tracking force, due to the setscrew being on the bottom of the arm.

Now, there were other complaints, of course, because turntables are mechanical products that have a lot of strong opinions wrapped around them, but in general, those were the issues.

With belt wobble, we went all-out. We redesigned the pulley, based on input from the belt manufacturer. We got a different durometer belt as well. And the great news was that the new pulley and belt completely eliminated the walking problem. It even fixed the “platter needs a push-start” complaint.

Except…

The new pulley and belt dramatically increased the wow and flutter. We’re talking 0.1% to like 0.3-0.4%. Total schiitsville. So those didn’t make it into the final product. We’re back on the original durometer belt and pulley, but we’re managing belt wobble by (a) sorting the belts, and (b) noting that belt tension is critical. If it walks, the tension is probably too high.

Aside: I’m downplaying the amount of belt experimentation we did. We actually also did a flat belt and pulley, but abandoned it, because it didn’t significantly enhance the wow and flutter of the original belt and pulley, and would have required two separate pulleys, rather than a stepped one. After many, many rounds of wow and flutter measurements on the APx555, we decided to stick with the original belt and pulley, which consistently measure 0.08-0.1%. And, we’re continuing to test Sols in production to ensure this number holds. Don’t bother with phone apps—they are inaccurate.

With walking and mechanical coupling, we moved to a new rubber puck on the motor base. This was better on the walking angle, but didn’t fix the mechanical coupling. We eventually went to another puck with low durometer to minimize it.

At the same time, we started trying different platter mats. Our Poron mat was cool and custom (but never round). We went through a couple of rounds of Poron mats from other suppliers, and never managed to get them round. Eventually, we got samples of other mats—rubber, rubber and cork, cork, leather, felt, compressed goat manure, etc…and found that the rubber and cork one worked the best for isolation. So the Poron mats went in the trash, and rubber and cork won.


Enter Space Grease

So why did it take so long to get what seem like some relatively simple fixes out? Well, besides waiting for parts (getting machined parts isn’t an overnight process), we also had some false starts. We really thought we had everything sorted when we had the new pulley and belt.

And then we started measuring.

And then we realized they were crap, and that we’d have to come up with something else. So there was a long period of running 3D prints and comparing results, only to bring us back to what we’d done before.

Aaaaannddd thennnn…when all was right and perfect…we’d wait a week, re-measure…

…and sometimes find that the results were totally different than last week!

As in, 0.10% wow and flutter would turn to 0.15%, or 0.2%. Again, this is on the APx555, not a phone app, with the same table and same methodology—specifically, AES 6-2008: Method for Measurement of Weighted Peak Flutter of Sound Recording and Reproducing Equipment (IEC 60386 Weighted.

Yeah.

At that point, I thought this product was finished. Launch it into the sun, give everyone their money back, and be done with it. If we couldn’t maintain consistent results, why bother making it at all.

But…David, one of our contractors, suggested something interesting. He said, “Maybe the grease you’re using is falling out of the bearing over time.”

So we checked this. And yes, re-lubing the bearing brought the performance back to where it should be—for about a week.

Then, bam. Back to where it was.

David suggested an exotic gel lube that was literally used on Mars rovers. And, after some wrangling, we managed to get a tub of it.

It worked great the first time we used it.

It worked great in a week.

It worked great in a month.

And it’s working great, 2 months into this.

So there you go. Space grease to the rescue.


The Unspoken Stuff

Those of you who have been following Sol may have noted that there’s a big difference in how we’re selling it now. As in, Sols now all ship with a cartridge, set up and ready to go with minimum fuss. This is 100% diametrically opposed to where we started, where no Sol came with a cartridge.

Why?

Simple: at this price point, Sol needs to be ready to go. We can’t expect everyone to want to set up a turntable, from scratch, including some super-fiddly stuff like setting platter height and cuing angle.

So we decided to make it simple to get started and include a cartridge.

The cartridge we arrived on—the Audio Technica AT-95EN—was the result of much listening. This cartridge provides good performance, and can be upgraded by changing the stylus assembly to a microlinear or Shibata style.

We may offer an additional cartridge in the future. But we’ll see. Let us walk a bit first.

We certainly will be offering additional tonearms, so you can set up your own cartridge, but again, let us get started (again), before offering the 6-pack. (Only partially kidding.)


Thank the Beta Owners

Thanks to the beta owners who stuck with us through this process, and provided feedback from which to improve! Again, if you are unhappy, you can still bail out now and get a 100% refund. If not, the additional items you need, such as mats, will be coming to you soon.

And thank David, for his critical recommendation of the space grease.

And finally, thanks to everyone for bearing with us. I know these are some crazy times, so don’t expect any great launch fanfare on any products. If they work for you, and you find them interesting, that’s great. But I’d rather that you take care of yourself, your family, and your friends. I wish you health and happiness in the days ahead.

Jason.

I was a very early customer of the Sol and was pleased to be in your beta group. From the outset I was very intrigued by the Sol's unique approach.

Today, I received the final care package and was curious about the christo-lube included. Thanks for explaining this.

I was wondering if you tried a similar product called SuperLube? It is a PTFE product. I believe a turntable company in New Jersey uses it?

I have been using it as my default turntable lube for several years.

I wonder if SuperLube is comparable to Christo-Lube?

 

[corndog71]

I’ve spent the last week or so reading this thread and finally got caught up. Good Schiit!

Out of boredom I recentry pulled out my Wyrd which I hadn't been using in a while due it seemingly not working. I also recently picked up an Eitr on closeout. I plugged it in between my Mac mini and the Eitr and it worked! I’ve been using VOX for playing music on my Mac and finding it sounds a little better than the default.

I keep my music on an external drive and sometimes have to redirect vox from default back to Eitr which is annoying. It may have just been user error with the Wyrd not previously working.

Anyway, after reading all about Schiit’s work with the new USB I just got to thinking “OK with Eitr bridging my Mac and my dac, I don’t really need the wyrd. But what about between my hard drive and the Mac? So I plugged my hard drive into the Wyrd and I swear it all sounds better! I don’t know. Maybe I’m hearing things.
Anyone else try this?