This thing has redeemed several pressings that I would've thrown in my discard pile otherwise. Granted, some of those (a pressing of Elton John's Live In Australia that I dropped a center weight on) can be replaced cheaply; others - like an original "green sleeve" first pressing of the first Electromagnets album (Eric Johnson's mid-70s fusion outfit) - aren't so easy to replace. It's definitely not completely foolproof; you need to calibrate it properly before you dive in or you will hear whether it's engaged or not, and if you crank the declick level too high you *will* destroy some of the music. And it doesn't completely eliminate the manual part of doing a good needle drop, but it sure helps a lot. It's worthwhile to me...although it'd be a much easier sell if it were half the price.
The price is £2600 in the UK. Not so surprising given VAT and importer mark ups. Looking at the spec and given it is a recorder and headphone amp has both A/D and D/A converters of obvious high quality, I can't say the price is excessive though fairly high if you aren't familiar with hi-end audio. Frankly given the work on refining the software to produce very transparent SQ and it's current uniqueness in the market they could have charged a lot more. Even in the samples I think I could detect a slight loss of the 'vinyl' sound but the removal of pressing faults is remarkable. Personally I think I will stick to seeking out great condition used vinyl and returning faulty new product but I can see it's use with rare pressings in fair to very good condition. Also it obviously has use in commercial restoration were best or only source is the original vinyl pressing, assuming this uses the most advanced/effective declick software at present available.
I see the SC-1 retails for $1999, did the price go up? Looks like a really solid device, definitely interested.
I emailed Sweet Vinyl the other day to ask about progress with the new, lower cost models. Dan replied saying it won't be this year - hopefully some time next year. Doesn't sound that promising to be honest. Their website is never updated (you would think they would link to many of the more recent glowing reviews) and there's no news anywhere.
You'll see earlier in this thread, I had emailed to ask a question about connecting the device, and never heard back. I get it that even great companies miss emails, and it should serve as no blanket indicator on their quality etc... But I did find it disappointing, nonetheless. And the lack of updates, no participation HERE or elsewhere that I can find from someone on their team (especially in this day of social media), as well as MD being the only place to buy... it's just too small (it would seem) of an operation for my tastes. That may seem silly or misguided to some, but it's how I feel. When i drop $2k on a product, I like to see solid communication and information from the company. I still think they are finding their way, and I wish them all the luck in the world. And as I have said many times before, I hope to see them successful enough to release a $999 or so, version.
No idea if they have regular day jobs or if they dedicate all their time to this endeavor but the way I believe companies should operate to inspire confidence is to provide ; Clear roadmap of product/update releases Ensuring the website is up to date Quick turnaround for responses to inquiries An elaborate knowledge base easy to navigate with the FAQ Following through promised scheduled releases I haven't experienced any of this with SV. I truly am wondering whether they are being successful with their product because information is almost impossible to come by and when it is, it's by little drops at a time. I wish them luck and truly want this to work and for them to provide this solution at half that price which, IMHO, would be a terrific addition to the industry.
Thanks for the input. I wrote to a dealer to see if they could shed any light. They said that if a cheaper product is released it would have lesser quality internals. Of course they would say that, because they want me to buy the current model right now! They may have a point though, as I can't see how they could shave hundreds off the retail price just by putting it in a plastic case.
My experience with SweetVinyl has been very positive and I have found them responsive to my queries. I participated in the original campaign and received my SC-2 unit about a year ago. I have had no issues at all with the product and it has enhanced the enjoyment of my overall audio experience. While I don't disagree with some of the suggestions re: the website - I find my interaction with Dan and Leo to be very timely and satisfactory. Additionally, while I know you are waiting to hear on potential new products I am eagerly awaiting an update to the recording software for the SC-2. I can only say that Dan and Leo have provided constant updates on their progress on the new software for the SC-2 and once completed will be an excellent addition to the existing product. As a user of their product - I just wanted to let you know that I am extremely satisfied.
They were also responsive to my inquiries. I've been a bit hard on them but primarily due to the fact that next to everything they've promised has always been massively late or just never released. We're all different people with different philosophies but in my book, you don't promise what you can't deliver. If a product should hit the streets on March 1st, don't promise it for December 1st and then delay it a handful of times. In their case, they promised January 2017 would be when their products would be released, but it wasn't a reality for another *10* months! While they're attempting to polish their offerings, key features they advertised as being available at launch for the SC-2 still aren't available, such as the automatic track-splitting and tagging features. AFAIK, these features aren't available, a full 2 years since the announcement of the product with no indication whatsoever as to whether it'll ever see the light of day. And these features are *still* being advertised on their website! No, I'm not putting them on trial but they are shooting themselves in the foot by pulling these stunts. Whether a product is overpriced or not is up to the individual user to decide but *if* they were to actually introduce the key features they have been advertising for 2 years for the SC-2, I believe it is reasonably priced. However, without these key features, I don't believe that product should sell for more than half its current price. There's a lot of potential in the product and I do get the feeling that the people behind it believe in it and genuinely have a love for music but they clearly need somebody to steer the ship in the right direction so that there's clearer communication to customers, they deliver the aforementioned key features, and update the website to better indicate what has and will happen. People are interested but they need to do a far better job or establishing trust which, purely IMHO, they haven't succeeded in doing. Let's hope they can get it together. It's a win-win if they do so I'm pulling for them, in spite of what my post may seem like projecting.
We are a small young company all your comments are welcomed and noted - thank you. However, we would like to address a few points: We are working every day and have shipped over 500 units so our main tasks have been in manufacturing, working out bugs, supporting customers, and finishing development of our products. If you have done this work, you will know this can be an all consuming process. To imply that we are not communicating to our customers is just not true - we are not just not doing through the website, yet. If you are a customer and have any questions or own an SC-2 and not on our email newsletter - please email us at [email protected] and we will add you. We have regular communication and updates for those that have purchased so they know the state of development. Any customer and even potential customer who emails us gets a prompt response in almost every case - if we have missed a couple of emails along the way we apologize but there could only possibly be a handful of these cases while we have responded to over 1,000 individual inquiries. While it might look to some like we are asleep at the wheel on the marketing front - in reality we are very close now to delivering the key features of the SC-2 and we have made a decision not to push heavily on the marketing and promotion levers again until we could deliver all we have promised after having missed many attempts to project an accurate schedule. We wish we could have better forecasting how long certain developments would take but complex software is typically six months late with a full team - and we are a little understaffed so it is taking longer than usual - but we are doing that. We have over 200 SC-2 units in the field that will soon be getting track break editing and metadata tagging as an automatic software update. The other thing complicating development is that the SC-1 ended up being much more popular than we imagined and getting all the pieces together and customers happy was a first priority. We have sold out of everything we could build as fast as we could build it and doing that and further development has made it very busy for us. So we slowed down the marketing push and decided to finish one thing at a time and now we are close to being able to market with confidence what we set off to build. Keep in mind that neither of the founders have made any salary and personally invested over a million dollars in this project and hold other jobs as well - so with all that said updating the website for potential customers - and heavy promotion on forums has not been a priority - right or wrong that is the reality. We would like to make everyone happy but we will not be able to do that and deliver to people who have actually bought product. Secondly - in the audio market the costs of going through distribution is very high - so if you want a product to sell for $1,000 - the dealer will take 40% - sometimes a little more. A distributor expects 30% on top of that - so at the end of the day a product that has an MSRP of $1,000 will need to be sold by the manufacturer for $380. Margins for manufacturers vary - but in general you will have a hard time sustaining a business for a small vertical market like high-end audio for less than 50% - this means that the final product cost needs to be about $180 for a $1,000 MSRP. If you were to examine our product you will quickly find that all our components alone quickly add up to over $500 - so it is just not feasible yet to deliver a high-quality product with all these functions for $1,000 and we are not operating near enough to the margins we need yet - but we are working on cost reductions and will have something to show soon.
Hi Dan, Thanks for joining my thread and and being so forthcoming about the development of the product and the company! Best, Eric
How and when and where? I bought an SC-1 this past summer and haven't seen a single email with any sort of updates. Did I miss a sign-up invite? It's great that you've de-lurked and shown up here - thank you for the info! I love my SC-1 and I am rooting for you guys, but it's frustrating that I've spent $2K on a product that came with the barest minimum of documentation, no communications from the company, a stagnant website with no user forums where I can go talk to other users about tips and tricks, no place to download the product manuals, no information on software updates. These are pretty basic things if you're going to sell consumer products...especially ones costing thousands of dollars. Please invest in some of this infrastructure soon.
You must have missed their email list because I've had a steady stream of updates throughout the product's release and development, get in touch with them!
Sure we have had discussions and part of our roadmap if you are thinking about the pop and click removal - but still you need quite a bit of processing power - a phono stage - AD-DA conversion and a separate power supply - this is enough that most manufacturers can't incorporate - it is not just a simple algorithm or set of chips you integrate. We utilize 25% of a 2ghz processor. There are some potential optimizations and technologies we are looking at but some companies we have talked to said anything more than $8 is too much hardware - so this is the mindset - it is deceiving how much technology needs to be integrated to make this work without harming the signal - there is a good rationale for splitting electronics off from the turntable but in the end if the volume is there and enough interest we may be able to do something in the future. We are working with the right people to do this if there is an opportunity.
You were a beta tester though, right? Of course they’re going to communicate with you on a frequent basis. If a new buyer has no way to register his product with the company, how would he get on an email list? It sounds like this whole thing is backwards IMO. The company should already have this all set up, rather than their customers, who have recently spent thousands of dollars, already wondering if they are still going to be around supporting the product.
Thanks Dan for the update. I continue to enjoy my SC-2 and look forward to your updates. It is an excellent product and I am extremely happy with the progress you have made so far given your limitations. Best Greg
I'm not sure I get it. If your issue is the background noise of vinyl, and the output you are listening to is digital....you could buy a LOT of CDs for the price of this device. Basically, this is an analog to digital converter, right? Or am I missing something?
Yes you are missing something. While the Sugarcube is performing an analog to digital to analog conversion, that is what it takes to remove the noises, but it does not change how the mastering of the vinyl sounds. Vinyl enthusiasts prefer the more natural sound most vinyl offers, though of course there are many CDs that are spectacular in that regard. In general terms the vinyl versions offer greater dynamic range, especially for contemporary releases while the CDs are compressed in range, the dynamics compromised so that the recording is louder and easier to listen to via earbuds or in a car. It is not the same sonic experience as listening to a vinyl record. Using a Sugarcube device insures the listener the sonics of vinyl they love along with the quiet backgrounds that CD listeners get by default. However a clean, well pressed record does not need a Sugarcube filter, and then it’s easily bypassed with the push of a button. This is not my way if saying one format is better than the other, my statements are meant in a general way so as to answer your question. As wonderful as vinyl records sound they are highly vulnerable to pressing defects, vinyl quality issues, and damage. The Sugarcube devices go a long way towards eliminating the results those issues cause, namely the irritating snap, crackle and pops that may affect vinyl records and lessen their enjoyment for the listener. Last night I played tracks from two audiophile pressings that each have a bad scratch in songs that are among their respective albums best songs. One came that way, the other I caused by accident. With the Sugarcube engaged at the default setting the scratch noises vanished and my listening pleasure was uninterrupted; that’s what it’s all about!
I’ve just come back from a demo of the SC-1 using an RP8, Luxman 509X and Tannoy Legacy Arden’s. I’d run ClickrepairRT until recently I had issues with the PC running it and it was packed away. But I’d really missed it and as I’d got a bit of money I thought I’d try the one box solution. The guy looking after me hadn’t heard one himself but had received good feedback on those they’d sold. He sat down with me to listen to a beaten up copy of The Cures Seventeen Seconds and as we switched between on/off/pops only, he was suitably impressed. I walked out with it and ‘accidentally’ bought the Luxman too, expensive day!
Thanks for the explanation. Your participation is greatly appreciated. I hope you are taking these comments for what they are ; constructive criticism. Everybody in this thread wants SV to thrive, hence the occasionally passionate discussions about your products and company. Having said that, I will respectfully disagree with the fashion which communication is handled. In my view, it is *crucial* for current users and potential customers to have the info at their fingertips. The current workaround of sending emails is cumbersome and from experience in dealing with customers via many endeavors, some will forget or not bother due to laziness. Also, again from experience, a website which is never updated rarely gets visited anyway. Here is a list of what I believe would be greatly beneficial to SV and the public ; Modify all sections where automatic splitting and tagging are mentioned to include the phrase "COMING SOON!". It is only because I am a member of this forum that I know these features aren't available, yet they continue to be advertised on your website and on Music Direct's. A page indicating current progress such as release dates for firmware upgrades and future products/features would also do your company a world of good. A simple newsletter signing up field. Publishing your newsletter on the website is an alternative worth considering. Again, from experience, this is not a time-consuming process. Most of what I described could be accomplished in about 20 min by any competent web designer and would save you a tremendous amount of work by decreasing the amount of inquiries you deal with on a daily basis. In turn, it will provide immediate answers to fundamental questions about the currently available features of the devices being advertised and save you and the rest of the team a significant amount of time in the process. A win-win, really. My 2 cents.
Thanks for your comments and we will take them into consideration - we will have a solution the team finds agreeable soon to your and other comments here that is scalable. This needs to work for our user base and is compliant with new regulations like GDPR. And we know it would be easy to add these things to a website - however we made a decision until the SC-2 has production release software not to publish all the details of the sausage being made to everyone. This has shortcomings but the benefit we have is that all eyes in our engineering team is able to view questions and issues directly and provide answers - and we can verify who is a customer and they get the correct information. Our long term view is that our customers who have experience with the product can provide information if they like to other new users who have questions and would like a solution where they can help other users if they want to. How we do this is something that we will solve. It is our view at this point that people with a legitimate need-to-know gets access to the information they need. Music Direct qualifies their SC-2 customers and the product is not stocked - but a special order. There are some holes here - but in general it has worked and as we move to the next stage as a company we will make changes that will address the concerns voiced here - and make it so that information is easily available.
