Life after Yggdrasil: Watering the Ash

Sorry, what does "ORFAS" mean?

 

Old Rich Farts Audio Society

 

digital can't do lows properly?

 

Think he means cheaper tables can't do lows properly like cheap digital can i.e. cheap lightweight parts, worse rumble, inherent imprecision in mechanical vs digital encoding etc... but can do mids and highs as well as the best of digital.

 

Additionally, the approx 8 hz record warp must be “managed”, bringing the phono preamp into the picture.

Edit: sorry, don’t mean to steer the Yggdrasil thread off course.

 

The Crane Song Solaris feels incredibly technical - evidence of a very strong digital conditioning resulting in a very low jitter - but has a weird tone and feels kinda "fake" or "processed" in the end. I would love to see the same digital front-end with an improve DAC stage!

@Xecuter : ever heard the Spectral SDR-2000 (pro or otherwise)?

 

@Clemmaster no haven't heard it. I omitted a lot of Dacs I had heard because they aren't really topical to SBAF like CAD, EMM labs, Light harmonics Da-vinci and also because they aren't worth talking about.

 

I have extensive experience with the Crane Song Spiders (8 channel mic pres with A/D) and can vouch for those being great to work with. That's a shame about the Solaris.

I am appreciating all the frank talk. As an audio pro, I have been pleased to see pro gear enter the conversation on here in the last few years. I also enjoy the toppling of sacred cows and the name brands that get reviewed at every site and by guys like Torq. I'd never heard of the Rockna; nice to know it's out there, even if out of my price range.

 

Eh, haven't gone against popular consensus in a while:

I think casting aspersions on Torq when he's no longer active on this forum to speak for himself is crass, but then again I'm definitely not in any position to comment on gear that isn't extremely accessible cuz money so for all I know his opinions on gear really are worthless.

The dude has rubbed people the wrong way for being a rich bastard with ostensibly more money than sense, but he's also been kind and helpful to myself and several others, both on-forum and backchannel. Sure the advice could be steaming horseshit past a certain level of diminishing returns, but the manner it is often presented and how it reflects on the person dispensing advice matters to others.

Not the case for me (heck I genuinely feel at home in this forum), but may be so for others.

@ChaChaRealSmooth probably not worth the effort. Too much bad gear out there to warrant the effort I feel.

P.S.
https://forum.headphones.com/t/expensive-underperformers/5923/11

 

I agree. Torq maynot be someone's cup of tea, but he puts in effort (for whatever reasons), is generally thorough and doesn't claim to be the supreme voice of authority like other asshats out there. He's a valid reference point if you understand where his prefereances are at. If someone who hasn't put in a fraction of that effort wants to crap on him, they can f**k off IMO. Or better yet just be ignored.

 

I got some value out of Torq's writing at the time. I'm not throwing him under the bus. He was the only SBAF member with the money to try out all the uber hi-end stuff at the time, and he didn't deny Schiit was good unlike most people who were dealing with $$$$ components (whether ORFAS or reviewers). By being the only one who could speak with authority on those pieces, his words carried a lot of weight. I think what's happening now is we have more members with experience at the very high end, whether from making audio friends, good relationships with dealers, or some of those items circulating through the used market - and those members are revealing that Torq's personal tastes might not be a great fit for many of us at SBAF. That's fine, but it wasn't clear to us at the time. I am glad we are getting more viewpoints let us triangulate what might be a good fit for our personal use.

 

Good solid state sounds like good tubes with more power but for many smaller signal things, like phono pres and head amps, it's much easier to find good tube ones than good solid state.

 

Is there a thread for this? And what kind of budget are we talking about that would be a noticeable step up from Sol or other <$1k entry-level turntables? I've been planning (and saving for) a TT purchase for a while, and I generally prefer to buy used and well-kept over latest and greatest, unavailable used (like Sol, etc).