An update - Shannon Parks got back to me and said that a "load" setting of 47 kΩ works fine with line-level sources, and that's what he recommends. In fact, if you select the "CD -4 dB" preset on the Puffin, it automatically sets the "load" parameter to 47 kΩ.
I feel as though I’ll never get a tick and pop remover My preamp is something I love and not willing to change, it doesn’t have tape loop, and so no options (that I’m savvy enough to use) will work. It’s not a huge issue for my collection, anyhow, but I’d certainly love the feature. I wish there were something that just went in betweeen the turntable and the preamp without the need for looping, or giving up the functionality of my preamp, as again, I love it and am not making any changes... *sigh
Let us know how this compares to your sc-1 mini if you get a chance to hear it. I'm pretty happy with my sc-1 but wish it would handle electronic music better.
I have my SC-1 Mini hooked up between my preamp and my integrated amp. I'm assuming you can do it with the Puffin too from what the manual says, but I have no idea how well it works. The Sugarcube for my uses works great. I've figured out that using my phone I can change the click repair level on demand when doing needledrops.
I am using McIntosh C2700 and 611’s. My understanding from the folks at Sugarcube is that without a tape loop, my current gear doesn’t allow for the SC-1 to be used. I’d have to get a model with a preamp built in and bypass mine, which I don’t want to do...
I've mentioned this a few times but you can get a PC to run a program like iZotope in real-time to which you'd send the audio from your phono preamp and the output would go to your amp. I've done so before and it works great.
Have you had the desire/interest in listening to the Puffin before/after "Magic" samples uploaded in that Puffin thread? I'm wondering how you feel about the performance of the Puffin vs. the iZotope type solution? I don't have any experience in this domain, it would be interesting to hear perspectives from people with some experience.
No - I have an original SC-1 and have encountered it quite a bit. However - AND PLEASE PAY ATTENTION, EVERYONE, AS THIS KEEPS COMING UP! - I've only had it happen at levels 4 and 5 (I never use higher), on LPs with bizarre distortion issues, such as static and glitches in the mix, or very severe vinyl damage. Go to 3:15 on the following track ... what's going on here caused the clicking to happen 100% of the time if I had the SugarCube set at 5. If I run at 3 or lower, the clicking issue never happens.
“May you live in interesting times.” Well, these past few months have been nothing short of interesting for all of us...! As always, we want to keep everyone in the loop-- and the lack of updates is really just representative of our efforts to compensate for being a bit short-staffed as we navigate these uncharted waters. Rather than endless details, we'd rather share a milestone, when we are there. For those of you who **like** details, though...: First, we are committed to finishing the Plus version and ship them – the production candidate board has just been brought up– and it looks good so far, so we will probably be able to commit soon to a spin and fabbing of the necessary number of units to handle all the SC-1 Plus and SC-2 Plus orders. Next, from a general production standpoint, boards ordered now take 5-6 weeks to get to us, versus 2-3 weeks previously. Shipments are delayed out of China in particular; our assembly house is working, but continues to be somewhat short-staffed. In the last month, a trifecta of software issues occurred– the first affecting the SC-2 Mini units that are backordered – this has been resolved, and we now have enough units to burn in and assemble to ship all the backorders - we are burning them in currently. The second concerned the Linux development platform, OS release, and version of some of our tools we have used for the last few years... it was removed from distribution (with very little notice) – this meant that we either had to move to a new major release for our OS and its development platform, or rely on an old-unsupported environment in the meantime. We had previously been working on upgrading for some time, with a plan to cut over after extensive testing – but this abrupt change has meant that all development builds have to stop until any issues are resolved and we can move to updates with a brand new version. The third was an issue on some of our units in the Mini line that we have been chasing for some months– as it turned out, a very difficult combination hardware/software bug, which was frustratingly intermittent! We were able to finally find what caused it and now have a fix we are testing – we plan to deploy this firmware on the next batch of Mini boards, after some final testing and refinement. So that is what is going on at Sweetvinyl in these interesting times-- we deeply appreciate everyone's interest, as well as your patronage, of course! Hopefully, we'll have a milestone to talk about the next time around. Stay safe, everyone! Best, -Dan
Something is up with my SC-1 Mini. I left it on for a couple days and back tonight to an unresponsive device. So I turned it off and back on again, and now the "Sugarcube SC-1 Mini" text is on the display lit up in blue and none of the buttons or dial are responsive. The device is also not showing up on my network either. When the Sugarcube was working it's been awesome and great at what it does. But now that mine is somehow bricked I'm not sure what to do. I'll look into a hard reset if I can't figure anything else out. Bummer. EDIT: Rebooting it a couple times seems to have solved the issue. Based on Dan's post hopefully they've figured out the issues that the SC-1 Mini has had lately.
Received the email from Dan that he referenced in his last post, looks tike my sc-2 mini will ship soon. Can’t wait!
Same here. I was pleasantly surprised because I thought nothing much would happen until California reopened, which seems to be a moving target.
Get into needle drops on any good recorder, and do CR on the files with software on a PC. At least clean up some old vinyl maybe if you like. During stay at home festivities I've been needle dropping a lot of vinyl. Between deep immersive water / dish soap cleaning, and a thorough rinse, dry with towel, and then click repair, I'm amazed at what an old slab of vinyl can end up sounding like. Thrift store gem finds were saved for reasons that I did not know at the time.
I am a bit confused here and maybe I am missing something about your setup. I am getting an SC2-Mini which is similar to the SC1 in terms of hooking it to my system. It will be inserted between my JC3-Jr and my HINT 6. There are RCA Line In and Line Out jacks on the SC2 (and the SC1 is similar). My JC3 Jr's Line Out will connect to the SC2's Line In. The SC2's Line Out can go to any free line level input on the HINT 6.
quicksrt, The manual for my SC2 diagrams a Macintosh pre amp hookup. If you're willing to place the SC1 after the Pre and before your amp, the chain will work correctly. The SC1 can process or pass through (without processing) as the signal leaves to the amp.
Then I have two questions... Because now I’m confused Lol 1. I spoke to the owner at SugarCube about 7 months ago, and he said that unless I used a model with a built in phono stage, thereby bypassing the one in my C2700, it wouldn’t work... 2. Is there a downside to this connection you refer to? Quality loss somehwhere? thanks!
It may be dependent on a volume you listening. If input from Phono Pre (or tape loop) is utilized then Sugarcube gets full 4V signal. If in between pre and amp -he gets attenuated signal, perhaps several times smaller. Will it affect operations? It may, or may not. )).
I don't remember anything addressing the question of Preamp gain or attenuation before the link to Sugarcube and then Amp, in the manual. I am dealing with a SC2, that has been updated and there are sections of the old manual that are now obsolete. So, are some of those connection options no longer advised ? I am using a receiver tape loop and have never tried the Preamp > SC2> Amp chain method. It may all be system dependent, according to one's specific model of Preamp.
I am using tape loop as well. Changes in sound quality in loop vs between preamp and amp are purely theoretical, and my speculations, which may, or may not be true.
Maybe I missed it but can you explain how to achieve this? Are you using the RX7 software? I tried researching this and can only find post-repair, as in importing and highlighting the track then using de-click/de-pop or whatever they call it.
I tried it and it’s not worth it. RX’s declicker will mess up whatever transient even at very low settings. It’s best used manually highlighting and processing that small portion of the click and not the whole file. ClickRepairRT is better. It’s very transparent and can preserve transients similar or even better than the Sugarcubes. I’ve tested both extensively on several records. The problem with ClickRepairRT is the fact that it is now discontinued and will not have any more updates. It can output 24bit on a Mac but is limited to 16bit on a PC. Also, because it is a Java application, on my Macbook Pro and Air, it will not run on anything past High Sierra. Tested v1.4.3 on Mojave and Catalina and it was a no go. Must be due to the Java version as it is tied to it. This is why the Sugarcubes are better in that regard. A standalone unit that you don’t have to deal with the pain of tweaking and setting up. Wish it wasn’t more much expensive though.
