The SugarCube Is Here At Last...Clicks & Pops R.I.P.

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by DigMyGroove, Nov 12, 2017.

  1. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I do think the Sugarcube is about as transparent as it gets when using it at a setting lower than 3. That will still clean up the worst LPs pretty well.

    On another note, I was playing Yes - Fragile the other night, NM vinyl. Even at a level of 1 I got hiccup sounds almost as soon as the needle dropped. I turned the unit off and back on, same thing. I tried pulling out the WiFi dongle while the music was still playing and instantly the hiccuping stopped.

    This brings me to a real question: am I the only one who was satisfied with the initial FW or other early ones? It's been getting only worse with the noise over the last few updates, so I'm getting to the point where I'd consider doing a factory reset and keeping it off the internet. When I don't get these issues this thing works great and I love it.
     
  2. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    I think I finally was able to hear those clicks, may be for a second or two. Then new version was installed, I rebooted the unit (that is almost a necessity after each update) -and never heard it again.
    And funny I was listening to Fragile the other day, 1st UK press in VG+...
    I am running SC-1 mini with 2.2-7-g68ac77ec-20200524-0110-dbus+prod installed 2 days ago
     
    marblesmike likes this.
  3. FrankieP

    FrankieP Forum Resident

    How do you check the firmware again? I have not connected the wifi dongle ever and my SC-1 Mini (I assume) has not gotten the latest firmware.
     
  4. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    I am using web version.
     
    FrankieP likes this.
  5. Machiventa

    Machiventa Forum Resident

    Location:
    Salida, Colorado
    Thank you for the informative post, I appreciate it!
     
  6. Hogues

    Hogues Forum Resident

    Pretty sure that I just received my shipping notice!
     
    Jim0830 and Joel Cairo like this.
  7. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Make sure to forward it to me. :D
     
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  8. Jim0830

    Jim0830 Forum Resident

    I just got my shipping notice for my SC-2 mini. I should have it on Tuesday June 2. Woo Hoo!
     
  9. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Strange, mine said it was running 2.1-37 or something like that marked with a date in early March, then it said it would download and update to 2.1-51 which is dated at the end of March. When I try to update it I go through the whole process and reboot it at the end (I'm assuming the end is when the lights stop blinking?), but still it says I'm on version 2.1.37.
     
  10. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Dan gave me the instructions via email for factory resetting my SC-1 Mini. After that I was able to update to 2.1-51. Hoping to get the 2.2 update soon.
     
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  11. Jim0830

    Jim0830 Forum Resident

    My Sugar Cube arrive Wednesday afternoon and getting it connected and working was easy enough. It is certainly everything it is cracked up to be. The LP's I have cleaned up sound the same minus the clicks. I hear no difference. I was impressed by the first LP I tried it with. The LP was a Columbia Six Eye from 1955 that was sourced from 78's. The SC-2 Mini cleaned up the ticks and pops on the LP itself, as expected. In addition there were clicks and pops on the songs themselves which were from the original 78's. The SC-2 Mini dealt with those as well.

    Now nothing is ever totally easy. I got an email this morning saying the iOS version of their app was not in the App Store. They sent a PDF of the latest manual and some additional instructions in the body of the email. Though the manual was last updated in March there have been changes since. The biggest of which is they dropped the system they had for auto identifying the albums and performing track splitting. The new system requires manually entering the catalogue number and it uses Discogs as the back end. I don't have much hands on recording time yet, but it doesn't seem too bad.

    I was able to follow the instructions and I'm controlling the SC-2 Mini via my web browser on my MacBook Pro, by launching a browser window and entering the IP address and the standard pairing code which is now the same number for all units. FYI the manual keeps stressing using Google Chrome for the browser while the SC browser software is in Beta. I do not use any Google products on my computers, phones or tablets because I don't like having my information sold to 3rd parties and used for who knows what. I am happy to report that as I expected it works just fine so far via Safari.

    I will also mention that the SC comes with a 1Gb USB 3 thumb drive which you can use to store recordings. The thumb drive also contains the latest version of the recording instructions and product manual. The recording instructions are also said to be not totally current due to recent changes to the software. I was able to get recording working with out referring to the instructions on the thumb drive.

    So far I am very pleased. There will be more used LP's in my future.
     
  12. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    FYI, *all* companies do that. Your credit card companies, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. You can't escape it. If you're on the Internet, your info is collected and sold regardless of which platform and service you use. If you have a mailing address and some bills, your info is sold too.

    Just an unfortunate fact of life.
     
  13. Phil Thien

    Phil Thien Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Mozilla Firefox doesn't.
     
  14. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Used on Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android. All platforms which gather your info and sells it off. Doesn't matter which browser you use. Cookies are generated whenever you visit websites. Those gather info as well regardless of which browser is used.

    My point wasn't to derail the conversation ; merely to indicate the criteria to not use a product/platform was incompatible (IMHO) with the facts of today. I still use Windows, iOS, Android, Google products like Chrome, X-Box Live, etc... even though I know what happens to my info. No way around it, really.

    Only way to escape it would be to use Linux and not have that machine online in any way.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2020
  15. Gso-Rob

    Gso-Rob Member

    4 peace of mind with NO tracking use a TOR browser.
     
  16. Jim0830

    Jim0830 Forum Resident

    Apple is not as guilty as some of the others when it comes to data safety. They are selling you product, not selling your information and making you the product. I use secure browser windows in Safari and Duck Duck Go, which doesn't track you as my search engine. I stay away from Twitter, Facebook etc. for the same reasons.

    I am going to go play with my LPs and my Sugar Cube (to get us back on topic). Oh and stay the hell off my yard.
     
  17. Hogues

    Hogues Forum Resident

    Mine should arrive today. I have to admit that I'm disappointed about the lack of an iOS app. In the email they said, "We have learned that the iOS is not in the app store currently" without any explanation why or any eta on when it will return. An out of date manual and the removal of the auto tagging function (which was a selling point for me) make me nervous. These are not things that I would expect to deal with after spending this much money on something. I'm sure as soon as I get it and figure it out, I'll be fine.
     
  18. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Sorry, that's incorrect. They've even been sued for it so it's in court records as well.
     
  19. marblesmike

    marblesmike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    The Android app doesn't work well for more so I've transitioned to using the web interface on my phone, which works most of the time. There are instructions on how to do it in the manual.
     
  20. Jim0830

    Jim0830 Forum Resident

    I thought this wording was a bit weird too. Almost as if it suddenly vanished without a trace. No doubt in my mind they didn't have time to rewrite the app to reflect the new way of tagging and editing tracks. The email implied the old method wasn't reliable, so that certainly doesn't work. Like you I am disappointed, but I will reserve final judgement until I have more hands on time with the new method. So far I am not finding it intuitive. Sometimes the catalogue number entry results in the tracks being added, sometimes not. One advantage to the new Discogs back end is virtually every release should be found. The old method had a much smaller number of releases and I am guessing a lot of the old LP's I will be recording might not have been in there.

    I'll respectfully stand by my statement. I said not as guilty. They have had less issues than the others. But the nice thing is we all can choose the route we take to protect our personal information.

    Also I am curious if anyone knows for sure what the knurled silver screw projecting out of the top rear face of the unit is? To me it looks like a ground screw, but no mention of it is made in the manual and I have seen no pictures showing it.
     
    Hogues likes this.
  21. Jim0830

    Jim0830 Forum Resident

    As a user of less than a week, I know just enough to be dangerous and I have two questions for other brand new users and three for old timers. I will put (New) or (Old Timers) at the beginning of each question so you can tell who it addressed to.

    In the interest of space if you are answering one question may I suggest that you quote just the question or just reference the number of the question(s) you are answering. Don't quote the whole post. At 69 pages this thread is already a LONG read.

    PREAMBLE:
    When I got my unit on Wednesday it had Beta firmware on it and I didn't plan on receiving an update soon where the email I received mentioning them just doing this before shipping the unit. Long way of saying: I didn't pay close attention to the firmware number. On Saturday the unit was not in use for several hours. When I plugged the memory stick in a message flashed on screen that a firmware update was in progress. It only took a few minutes which surprised me. My first 2 questions are for SC-2 Mini users who received their units in the last week or so:
    1. (New) Did you receive a firmware update in the last few days?
    2. (New) My main screen in the Browser says "Welcome to the new Version 2.2". What firmware version does the main screen in the Web Browser list that you have?
    3. (Old Timers) I had intended that I would only process LP's that were showing some wear and tear. I really don't hear the difference between the sound of repaired vs bypassed. Do many users simply leave their SC on when listening to all LP's, even MoFi's or other HQ pressings that are new and clean?
    4. (Old Timers) How does one make an unprocessed recording? Do you save the selection with the repair function turned off?
    5. (Old Timers) I have had several instances where I try saving the recordings I've made to my local drive and it fails. I get an error message and there is a .zip file saved to my Downloads folder that is partial and stops bringing in any additional data. I end up having to transfer it to my MacBook Pro via the Thumb Drive. Other times with other recordings it works fine. Has anyone else had this issue and have you figured out a cause or a solution?
    The Sugar Cube is simply amazing and is working out far better than I ever imagined. I learned about thanks to this forum. I knew nothing about it before seeing this thread. The Sugar Cube is spoiling me quickly though-I HATED clicks and pops but they were a necessary evil. Now I am beginning to expect my all of my LP's to be silent.

    Thanks in advance for the help.
    Jim
     
  22. Hogues

    Hogues Forum Resident

    I received my sc-2 mini on Friday, several days after FedEx said that it would be delivered. The box was beat to hell and I was certain that I was going to have a broken unit, but it was packed well and in pristine condition. I booted it up and used my Chrome browser on my iPad to control it. Still not happy about the lack of an apple app or an explanation of why it suddenly disappeared. I booted it up and I noticed that the startup directions said that it takes about three minutes to completely load. I didn't time it but it seemed significantly quicker to me. I listened to a few albums and here are my initial impressions:

    The Good: The click and pop removal software. It's outstanding. I have listened to sever albums and I can’t tell the difference when the repair is engaged and when it isn’t. I plan to leave it on the entire time. The fit and finish of the unit is great as well.

    The Okay and the Bad: Recording and the interface. Yikes. As I said, no app for Apple products is not good and their notification and lack of explanation is even worse. The interface itself has a very 1990's Compuserve feel to it and isn’t that intuitive, in my opinion. The out out of date guides help but aren’t really that great. So far as I can tell, there is no auto track splitting, which I thought that they said was going to happen. You have to manually set the track breaks which isn’t that easy with their software. Moving the sliders is not easy and I frequently had to start over. And I have found being precise almost impossible with this interface. The recordings are saved as album sides as well as tracks. I’m assuming that the album sides can be run through another program for track splitting if you so choose. One of the nice things about recording is the metadata is from discogs. You just type in the album code and the info appears. This is a great feature when it works. I was able to record a couple of albums with the discogs info and it was great. This morning, I picked up my news paper and planned to do some recordings while reading it but stopped after the first side of the first album because I couldn’t get any metadata and I didn’t want a bunch of unidentified album sides saved on the box. You can put in your own metadata but I don’t know if it is permanent or if I can replace it later when discogs finally works again so I don’t want to mess with it right now.

    So overall I have to admit that I’m disappointed so far. While I love the click repair function, the reason I bought the sc-2 mini was for the recording features. As of now, I find them to be lacking.
     
  23. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    1. My update was 2 weeks ago
    2. Same. If you go to suport-updates, then you will see more detailed version number. Mine is SugarCube 2.2-7-g68ac77ec-20200524-0110-dbus+prod
    3. I have it in my processor loop and engage it always, unless 1) it is a perfect brand new record, properly cleaned or 2) newly purchased used records so I can identify if seller rating was adequate. Unit itself is always on.
    4. and 5. I have SC-1 Mini and cannot comment on recording, as of now I am not truly interested in digitizing.
     
  24. Joel Cairo

    Joel Cairo Video Gort / Paiute Warrior Staff

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    There is a software program called Vinyl Studio Pro (about USD $50.00) that will allow you to import album files; and after you give it enough info to apply the tags, it can also apply the track splits.

    It's on both Windows and Mac.

    - Kevin
     
    Hogues likes this.
  25. Hogues

    Hogues Forum Resident

    Thanks. I may give it a try. I just feel like I shouldn't have to, though.
     

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