Schiit Sol Turntable Review - Episodic.

Discussion in 'Vinyl Nutjob World: Turntable and Related Gear' started by purr1n, Sep 10, 2019.

  1. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    Is anyone else getting [what I am guessing is] motor noise transmitted into the plinth/tonearm? In the quiet parts of my records, I can hear a gentle hum from the motor. What, if anything, are you doing to isolate the motor pod?
     
  2. Ruby Rod

    Ruby Rod Facebook Friend

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    I'm on a very flexible surface right now and can hear some motor hum with my head over it. Haven't listened for it though headphones or oscilloscope yet. Long ago I tried the table on damping spheres but didn't like it. Might be worth a try with the motor.
     
  3. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    Here are some audio clips of the noise I'm getting. There is some initial noise that is just the noise from my phono stage when the platter is spinning. At about 3 seconds, the tonearm is lowered and you can hear a 60 Hz hum introduced to the noise.

    It's not very loud, but it is audible in the lead-in groove, between tracks, etc.

    Here it is

    Here's another file with more gain applied to make it easier to hear

    Any ideas what is causing this? Motor isolation issues? This happens both with and without the groundwire attached to the phono stage. As an aside: the Sol sounds better going into my Pioneer SA-7500 ii and/or my Behringer U-phono with NO ground connection.

    Any thoughts are much appreciated!
     
  4. Ruby Rod

    Ruby Rod Facebook Friend

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    Sol is wired so that you don't need the extra ground wire and it will probably have lower hum without it in most systems. More to follow when I learn a bit more.
     
  5. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    Interesting about the ground wire. Is that a function of having the motor be outboard? The sound clips I uploaded are with no ground wire attached, for the reference of anyone who happens to listen.
     
  6. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Going way back to turntable being my primary music source, it had a three-pin plug, an earth wire to the amplifier (built-in phono-pre: they all had in those days. Phono was probably the first item on the knob) and an earth from their to the house plumbing. I always accepted that at least some of all that was just needed for turntables.

    I never knew why. Just that it buzzed without it. BUZZ, not hum.
     
  7. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    [​IMG]

    I have my Sol on top of a leveling platform I made from two heavy duty cutting boards that I picked up at a restaurant supply store. Today, I confirmed that the noise I linked above is motor noise getting transmitted through the wood platform and into the feet of the Sol. A cut some thin pieces of melamine foam (Mr. Clean Magic Eraser) and put that under the feet, and that eliminated 70% of the noise. I put a small sliver of foam underneath the motor itself, and that also helped but the belt was riding off of the top. Long term, I'm thinking of building a small wall-mounted shelf to hold the motor on a completely different surface. In my experimenting today, I found that knocking on the wood platform causes much more noise to be transmitted to the speakers than my other turntables. I wonder if that's due to the tonearm being attached to one of the posts that supports the feet.

    Anyhow, Sol users may benefit from playing around with isolation.
     
  8. lehmanhill

    lehmanhill Almost "Made"

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    Very interesting. May I assume that the top platforms "feet" have some isolation from the lower platform? If so, it might be an interesting experiment to remove the feet from the Sol entirely. That should couple the mass of the top platform to the Sol could reduce the acceleration reaching the Sol. Then again, it could increase the vibration transmission, which would tell you that you need to better isolate the Sol from the platform.
     
  9. Ruby Rod

    Ruby Rod Facebook Friend

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    All my hum type noise is down at the hiss level of the cartridge, but ideally it should be zero. There are many paths of ingress, some easy to address, others harder. They can be separated out by running tests in different configurations. Some are physical proximity, some are grounding and some are mechanically conducted. I have some motor hum coming through the top of my equipment rack where the table sits, but it's thin MDF and not really suitable, just available. I would have thought the heavy platform would eliminate it, but apparently not. I think I've mentioned that I had Sol on damping hemispheres early on, and didn't like the sound. No idea why, as it seems like a good thing to do. I also had a different foot scheme for the motor, but it was too fussy for the typical user, thus the current feet. I had used two damping hemispheres slightly off the center-line of the motor housing, so it naturally tipped sideways. By positioning the motor correctly, it would automatically tension the belt correctly and even absorb slight variations. As you can imagine, it also made putting the belt on and doing the first adjustment a bit of a PITA. Good scheme performance-wise, bad scheme customer-wise. I also worry about vibration transmission through the belt itself, but haven't been able to prove that it's an issue. I still have the old belt, not the new one.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The use of smallish wood blocks I've seen used by some owners of heavy tables is to introduce some resonance play (similar idea to wood bodied carts). This approach may be a bad idea for the Sol, where the idea is to have as little plinth as possible. Wall mount or on a table of decent weight where everything is coupled to the floor may yield better results.

    Hum could also be from other sources. Some carts pick up hum more than others. Some rearranging of tonearm wire, AC power wires, RCA cables, may help. Can also try grounding or not grounding to the phonostage.
     
  11. scblock

    scblock Friend

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    When working on your hum issue have you also tried placing the motor pod on the opposite side of the table? It looks fairly close to the tonearm in the photo. My motor pod hums mechanically, which is audible in a quiet room, but I do not hear anything come through to my speakers or headphones.
     
  12. TDeb214

    TDeb214 New

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    I experienced mechanical noise that could be heard as soon as the stylus touched the record. I found that motor noise was being transmitted through the table the turntable was sitting on and was being picked up by the cartridge. I troubleshooted by carefully lifting the motor off the table while a record was playing. The noise disappeared. I added sorbothane pucks under the plynth and motor and the turntable is running silent.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yeah, anything with a separate motor pod is a bitch. I also have a VPI TNT 3 with a separate motor pod. Now this motor pod is like 10 times heavier than the Sol, yet on certain types of surfaces, it resonates with the band, creating a horrible screeching noise. Point is that all this is normal with separate motor pods and experiment to see what works. Oftentimes it's a balance between speed stability and motor noise.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2019
  14. Ruby Rod

    Ruby Rod Facebook Friend

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    FWIW, Sol has a separate motor because of the problems I've had with plinth mounted motors. Some have done it right, but far from all. With a separate motor you always have options for isolation.
     
  15. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    I don't think I was getting an EM interference, but I appreciate the reminder that having that motor right next to the tonearm might not be the ideal spot. It's all the way over opposite the tonearm now. The noise I was hearing still persists, but I can eliminate it by putting the motor pod on a separate surface, so it's no big deal.
     
  16. tranq

    tranq Friend

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    So I received a Sol a couple of weeks ago, but life being what it is I didn't start tinkering with until Wednesday night. It seems I was sent an original version one, one that had previously been used. So I experienced most of the issues yall posted about back in September. I stopped after about two and a half hours of tinkering with it. Was a fun but mildly frustrating experience. I got a hold of Schiit on Friday afternoon and Amy sent out all of the latest components for me.

    Late last night I retreated to my basement and decided to play around with it some more. The learning curve is steep, but fast. I ended up taping the ground wire on the tonearm to the headshell as the previous user had ripped it off and it was too short to attach to the screw. I saw things alot differently the second go round.

    Anywho at 2:20 am I got it to spin and wouldn't you know it sounds pretty darn good. Using a basic Grado prestige black 2.

    I should mention I'm in the category of noob/beginner, with the issues I encountered it took me about 4-5 hours to get it up and running. But I took my time and I was relaxed.

    Many thanks to this thread, and both Conrad's and Schiits videos.. they helped immensely.

    First TT I've ever set up FWIW. Gerry Lafferty and Dire Straits sound pretty good so far. Not as clean and clear as digital but very enjoyable..


    One question, my system has some loud buzz, but I flipped the mani over and the buzz went away..

    What's that about?
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
  17. Jalsar

    Jalsar Facebook Friend

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    Sorry if this comes off rambling. Typing this out while cooking dinner.
    Just finished setting up the my Sol. Setup went pretty smooth. It took me about a hour to setup all the way. Using a mp-110 cart.
    The motor just so happens to resonate with the dresser I have it sitting on. The motor rattles when I start it unless I hold it down. Going to have to figure out something better to sit it on.

    I’m actually surprised how much better the bass on the Sol than on my Technics sl-q303. Will test it out more once I get something to sit it on. The motor resonating on my dresser drives me crazy.
     
  18. seeirwin

    seeirwin New

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    When I'm running at 33 RPM, the motor rattles with surprising intensity upon startup. After a bit of experimentation, I moved the motor a bit closer to the platter to create a little more slack in the belt and now it starts without all of the chattering. It still happens at 45 RPM, though.
     
  19. Jalsar

    Jalsar Facebook Friend

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    I think the motor should probably be heavier. My MMF has an isolated motor but its a lot heavier and has never made that rattle.
     
  20. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Mani is gender neutral and sometimes wants to be Inam.

    Sorry, shitpost.
     

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