Schiit Sol

HiFi Guy said:
The Denon DL103 is the wrong cartridge for this arm
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From Schiit's own FAQ:
"Which cartridge? Any one you like. We like the Nagaoka MP-110 and Denon DL-103R, amongst others"

If they actually tried the DL103 on the Sol, then how could they not have noticed the cartridge mounting issue? Sheesh.
 
AnthonyI said:
How refreshing, no diluting the problem, no dancing around blame, taking it 100% in the teeth and even phrasing the email like a normal person ".....if your just done with Sol right now", I may never buy a Schiit product, but as a company they have my utmost respect now, swaying that pendulum in their direction in a big way. Kudos
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I'm a really big Schiit fan. I think they're doing a lot to combat some of the biggest problems in hifi gear right now... and I really hope this Sol stuff doesn't tarnish them too much. I've listened and review some of their gear, the Mani specifically, which I really love. Probably one of the best, if not the best, affordable phono pre on the market right now. I've heard the Vidar and liked it, the Saga and thought it was pretty decent, but haven't heard any of their DACs.

Anyway, Schiit is cool. We need more cool in hifi gear right now.
 
I think Jason's response should go a long way to minimize the tarnish. It was, perhaps, the only thing he could do. I almost wish I pulled the trigger to get in on the beta. I'll be interested to learn how it performs after the fixes.
 
Anyone here actually have one of these? What has the communication been like from Schiit about [what I am guessing is going to be] a tonearm replacement? Any timeline? Anyone have it working well-enough now to give impressions after a few weeks? It looks like they were running a Grado Black in some of their testing, so I would assume that cartridge probably plays nice with what got shipped out.
 
Jason Stoddard provided an update on the Sol in his year end review.

Idiocy #3: Screwup on Sol. This is the big boy. I think we just had been running prototypes for so long that we figured everything was fine. But between parts tolerance issues, bad machining, and other production glitches, we went from “selling” back to “beta” in just a few days. We continue to work on this product with the voluntary beta-testers (anyone who wanted out was given a full refund, including shipping, and beta testers were given a discount), but it’s slow going. Don’t be surprised if there are further delays. This is a complex product, and, if we start selling again, we want it to be right.

“Hold up, did you say, ‘if’ we start selling it again?”

you might ask. And yes, that’s exactly what I said. If we can’t make this a stellar product (consistently), we may not continue with it. In that case, all beta testers get 100% refunds and that’s the end of that.

Let’s talk about this some more.

Sol had a long gestation, and although there are people here who care deeply about the product, caring only gets you so far. It has to be clearly better than the competition, or serve a unique need, for us to produce it. The world doesn’t need more me-too products. Nor does it need products that are a source of continual frustration.

So, if we get it worked out to our satisfaction, and to the delight of the beta testers, we will re-introduce Sol. If not, we won’t.

Which way will it go? I don’t know.
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He also dropped this nugget on a new phono preamp.

What’s a truly modern, totally insane (but still analog) phono preamp look like?
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Mani is great as-is. Nothing at the price competes in terms of performance and flexibility. You should be asking: what can we do for 10x the price? Could we redefine what you expect from a phono preamp? Can we compete with cost-no-object designs?
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trickyseven said:
Jason Stoddard provided an update on the Sol in his year end review.



He also dropped this nugget on a new phono preamp.
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The Sol launch was a mess, but I did like how they handled things to the best of their abilities. I also loved that he said all Beta testers will get a full refund if they decide to drop the product. Not to mention that it takes a lot to formal state that a highly anticipated product could still be pulled at this point.

It's unfortunate they made the initial mistake, but other companies (cough cough, VMP, cough) should take note of how they addressed and resolved the issue. Pretty sure I've said all that before, but every time I see an official statement from them about the Sol I'm pretty impressed with how they've worked so hard to make things right.
 
displayname said:
The Sol launch was a mess, but I did like how they handled things to the best of their abilities. I also loved that he said all Beta testers will get a full refund if they decide to drop the product. Not to mention that it takes a lot to formal state that a highly anticipated product could still be pulled at this point.

It's unfortunate they made the initial mistake, but other companies (cough cough, VMP, cough) should take note of how they addressed and resolved the issue. Pretty sure I've said all that before, but every time I see an official statement from them about the Sol I'm pretty impressed with how they've worked so hard to make things right.
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I have to agree. They had a shitshow with the SOL introduction. But they accepted responsibility right away and did everything in their power to make it right for their customers. While you can't unspill spilt milk, they earned my respect with the way they addressed the problems.

And they have listened to criticism regarding the Mani and corrected the possible RF issue. Under $150, I don't think one can do better.

A $1300 Schiit phono stage? I'm paying attention now. This could be interesting.
 
HiFi Guy said:
I have to agree. They had a shitshow with the SOL introduction. But they accepted responsibility right away and did everything in their power to make it right for their customers. While you can't unspill spilt milk, they earned my respect with the way they addressed the problems.

And they have listened to criticism regarding the Mani and corrected the possible RF issue. Under $150, I don't think one can do better.

A $1300 Schiit phono stage? I'm paying attention now. This could be interesting.
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I'd be interested in a 1300 Schiit phono stage.... but the build quality would have to be better than they normally do. There's too many quality components at that price point to put up with their awful sheet metal and wobbly knobs. I think they do entry level better than anyone else though.
 
HiFi Guy said:
A $1300 Schiit phono stage? I'm paying attention now. This could be interesting.
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What kind of crazy tech would they put into a "truly insane" phono pre that rivals the crazy expensive ones? Balanced outputs? I'm curious what they could be cooking up.

$1300 is almost the price of a brand new Insight, they'd really have to do something special to beat out one of those.
 
trickyseven said:
What kind of crazy tech would they put into a "truly insane" phono pre that rivals the crazy expensive ones? Balanced outputs? I'm curious what they could be cooking up.

$1300 is almost the price of a brand new Insight, they'd really have to do something special to beat out one of those.
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I'll bet it's a linear power supply FET design- no ICs at all. Oh, and balanced outs. Not necessarily better but different.
 
Agree, linear power supply for sure. That's a big difference. They could also go with a tube or hybrid design. That seems like something Schiit might go for based on some of their other designs. Obviously it would need to have a lot of flexibility too. It would certainly catch people's attention if they did it.

But given the launch of the Sol, I think they are going to stick with something very safe for their next major/flagship release. They haven't done an integrated in awhile, so a Class A integrated to go above the Ragnarok could be an option. Maybe the Aegir amp circuitry in the same box as a Gungnir or Yggdrasil DAC. Obviously a headphone amp would stay as well. I think they have the audience for a $3-4K integrated.
 
displayname said:
Agree, linear power supply for sure. That's a big difference. They could also go with a tube or hybrid design. That seems like something Schiit might go for based on some of their other designs. Obviously it would need to have a lot of flexibility too. It would certainly catch people's attention if they did it.

But given the launch of the Sol, I think they are going to stick with something very safe for their next major/flagship release. They haven't done an integrated in awhile, so a Class A integrated to go above the Ragnarok could be an option. Maybe the Aegir amp circuitry in the same box as a Gungnir or Yggdrasil DAC. Obviously a headphone amp would stay as well. I think they have the audience for a $3-4K integrated.
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I don't think they'll have a big issue successfully making a flagship phono stage.

What they didn't understand was how difficult it is to successfully manufacture turntables. The tolerances are much tighter than putting printed circuit boards in a box and wiring everything,
 
It's back. Changes laid out in this post.

Also, Jason dropped more deets on what they might do for a phono stage in this post. Quote below.

And, although we haven’t done any completely insane, heroic discrete designs, this is where we’ll go to smoke the performance of the best integrated stages for an all-out phono preamp. Getting near -100dB THD+N with 60dB of gain…yes, this is doable. And yes, I know, this is for an antique sound reproduction method that might seem completely stone-age when compared to the convenience of streaming 24/96 from Qobuz, but hey, a lot of people really like it…and there’s a lot of spinners out there.
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Is it just me, or does that counterweight look like it can only move 5mm? How are we supposed to adjust it with any kind to precision?
 
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