Schiit Sol- The Next Great Turntable?

Any of you guys heard the expression 'too many chefs spoil the broth'? There's no single hand in any design or manufacture. Miscommunication is rife... objectives conflict... just like this thread...

 

Which just proves my point. TLDR version: There is no Schiit cult here. Stop your whining.

 

Off topic but cost cutting at Tesla is because it's not possible to make a profitable electric car at present. James Dyson in the UK has abandoned plans to produce one because it didn't stack up commercially having designed the vehicle. Electric cars are a false dawn and promise. Nobody has thought out the environmental negative impact of producing so many batteries and their disposal, plus simply do not have enough range or there aren't ever going to be enough charging points. Toyota can short term sub electric vehicles with standard car production.

 

I don't know if you are right or wrong but to my ears the gentle whine of a Tesla electrical drive-train has more subtle layers and better rear/front axles separation which contributes to a more pleasant listening experience than Toyota does.

 

This thread has gone a bunch of wrong directions.

How about some updates from Sol users, how is it going?

What has improved?

What still needs fixing?

 

Schiit has said they'll be shipping the first upgrade package in a week or so, then we'll see what the beta group has to say. Mine is performing very well with the prototype upgrade parts, save for one of my belts that likes to wander. They should have that under control too, as it turns out the belt manufacturer managed to get a twist in some of them. One could say they put a new twist on belt making. I've done a companion set-up video that they should make available along with theirs (or PM me.)

 

I received my upgrade pack today. The belt and pulley are working great. Going to pull an old cartridge tomorrow and give the revised arm a try. It looks great. Like the counter weight adjustment set screw now on the top. Upgraded mine with a SS thumb screw for ease of adjustment.
Richard

 

Conrad Hoffman linked to a video on SBAF on how to correct the anti-skate support by bending. Schiit also posted their own video, watch Conrad's also for some other good tips on set up.

 

Spent some time today setting up the old AT14Sa cartridge from the 70's on the new revised arm. Using this gentleman's video as a guide it went extensively well. I'm very pleased.
http://www.conradhoffman.com/Sol Support/Hardcore Sol Setup.mp4

 

Sounds like reality is finally starting to play ball with the title of this thread.

 

I enjoyed that. Knows his stuff.

 

If Schiit could just have sent Mr. Hoffman one of the production turntables to test before they shipped it seems like the product roll out could have been much smoother. From the posts Mr. Hoffman has made it seems after the initial design he was not that involved in bringing Sol to market. It sure did not take him long to tell Schiit how to fix the problems once he had a production turntable at his workshop. Example is the antiskate support arm coming off the arm support at the wrong angle requiring users to bend it about 45 degrees.

 

I've noticed the placement of the antiskate hook looks to be designed to keep the arm on the cue bar if it gets knocked accidentally, so it seems intentional. Bending it defeats this and creates another bend in the wire production, raising cost for what at first blush seems to offer little benefit. I haven't bent mine over yet, preferring to use it as a scaffold for a different treatment, one based on a pulley with a levered sliding weight adjustment. But for whatever reason, the existing arrangement is just not working for me: Either the dynamics become blurred (at best) or there's outright mistracking where there shouldn't be. I can see why unipivot designers go out of their way to avoid its use by conventional means.

Tonight I'm going to remove the little glue blob at the top of the hook so I can slip some bits of wire insulation over it to lock the thread in position at pivot height as with the existing arrangement the loop keeps sliding all over the place. I know Conrad wants us to tack it in place with shellac or something but I want/need an arrangement that is more flexible.

BTW, for anyone looking for an easy fix to the CW adjustment hassle, I dropped a short piece of wire insulation about 1mm long into the set screw hole before replacing the set screw. The insulation yields a little when you back off the screw but keeps pressure on the stub so the weight doesn't slide all over the place. I also rotated the weight 180 degrees so the flat on the stub opposes the screw (so now the screw is back on the bottom lol). The corners of the flat forms a couple of rails that seat nicely against the circular bore of the CW. Along with the set screw, the contact rails form a 3-point clamp which is very secure.

 

How do you guys adjust the anti skate force? Are weights of differing values included with the table?

 

Yes there are 3 brass weights with string attached included with the tonearm

 

I ordered some small o-rings to try and do the same thing.

 

Clever! I'm going to steal that idea for my "Pimp Your Sol" video if it ever comes out.

 

I think these will do the trick. McMaster Carr 9262K108

 

I'm so glad they changed this to a "beta" program. Watching someone just blindly bend a production model to make it functional is painful to watch. It'll be interesting to see what the final design looks like.

 

Since there is no one perfect setting for tonearm height, I would guess that adjusting the anti-skate support by bending it will be standard practice.

 

It sounds like this table will always be for those more adventurous at heart if it's always going to require bending things. It's certainly a interesting addition to the market, but thise whole process has me thinking this table is probably not ever going to be for me.

 

The O-rings idea is certainly a lot more elegant than wire insulation. I'm going to suggest Schiit supply a set with each arm in my next beta report. Letting the fishing line slide up and down the pole is a non-starter. With the o-rings (er...insulation) I can now tug the weight down without the arm bobbing around. Before, doing so would sometimes pull the line off the top of the pole!

 

This is one reason I want to adapt the hook to a moveable pulley system...so it can be moved up and down as needed. Hey, if the pivot height is adjustable, why not the hook? The table already comes with the allen key...lol.

 

The bend is necessary to bring the loop around to the correct radial location as viewed from above. AFAIK, Schiit has already corrected that. Vertical isn't so critical as it's partially compensated by the attachment point, but I'd guess when one decides on the final VTA it might be desirable to tweak the loop height. Most people shouldn't have to touch it, just use it. If nothing else, having this beta process somewhat open should be giving people an education on the various things that go into having a properly functioning tonearm, regardless of who made it.

FWIW, the other night I was going through some of the garage sale records I often buy and found a nice 1964 Louis Armstrong LP. Man, did that sound nice on the Sol. Also found an old K-Tel polka record with The Pennsylvania Polka, the one they played in Groundhog Day.

 

The table was never going to be plug n play, and is possibly one reason it took so long for Schiit to bring it around. I don't think their target market is the tweaker type, but I really don't know. I can see clearly that some of the changes they made (like the position of the AS hook) were intended to make it more user friendly, even if it represented a compromise away from Conrad's original design.