Schiit Turntable: the giant-slayer that slays giants and schiit

Speed accuracy will likely be on par with something like an RP3. It might be a little quieter than that TT due to the isolated motor and possibly better main bearing. The arm will be far more fiddly and more of a PITA to set up. I hope they get rid of the exposed unshielded wire I saw on the prototype, otherwise it will be a magnet for RFI and other issues. .

What is the speed accuracy of the RP3? Remarkably, their website show NO specifications for anything, inc. W/F, S/N, etc.. Could that really be?? I've never considered a Rega so I've never bothered looking for their specs.
 
I think I would put more faith in Conrad H's engineering abilities than your evaluation. While its aesthetics follow a form follows function, and is designed with performance being a driving factor relegated by price point, it also means its not for everyone. Not everyone will go for its looks, and that is understandable. As far as the important aspects of turntable design such as platter and bearing, I personally can appreciate the choices made, and they do follow solid engineering principals. I think I will place more trust in Stoddards and Moffats experience and skill, along with Conrad H's contributions and wait and see what the production components look like, before I make any kind of evaluation on what the quality and performance of this component is going to be. At this point I can't say if I like it or not, but I will say I am interested in seeing and hearing the final product. And to see what the final upgrade options will be once the table is established and all the goodies are made available for it.

I'm sure they're competent engineers. ..And I do admire the form factor of their components. But this their very first attempt at a product category that has been around for > 2 generations. ..It's hard to imagine how they're going to break new ground. Or what possible buyers might hope for from this design that's not available elsewhere, in dozens of other tables. Still, I hope you're right. I always root for small business to succeed.

And while my (and others) assessment may seem a bit harsh, I think it's better for them to hear it NOW before they embark on an expensive and time consuming undertaking. ..If they ask only their cohort of loyal customers and friends of their business they're apt to get just one-sided feedback.

As for "upgrades". ..Maybe it's just me but I'd strongly urge them NOT to go the route of a few other companies whose tables in basic form are essentially poor performers in terms of speed accuracy thus requiring "upgrade" speed controller, etc.. A turntable that doesn't maintain a steady pitch in it's basic form is, IMHO, an unfinished not-ready-for-sale product.
 
Last edited:
I'm sure they're competent engineers. ..And I do admire the form factor of their components. But this their very first attempt at a product category that has been around for > 2 generations. ..It's hard to imagine how they're going to break new ground. Or what possible buyers might hope for from this design that's not available elsewhere, in dozens of other tables. Still, I hope you're right. I always root for small business to succeed.

And while my (and others) assessment may seem a bit harsh, I think it's better for them to hear it NOW before they embark on an expensive and time consuming undertaking. ..If they ask only their cohort of loyal customers and friends of their business they're apt to get just one-sided feedback.

As for "upgrades". ..Maybe it's just me but I'd strongly urge them NOT to go the route of a few other companies whose tables in basic form are essentially poor performers in terms of speed accuracy thus requiring "upgrade" speed controller, etc.. A turntable that doesn't maintain a steady pitch in it's basic form is, IMHO, an unfinished not-ready-for-sale product.

I think it's better for them to hear it NOW before they embark on an expensive and time consuming undertaking. ..

That ship has already sailed, and the investments have been made. From an article posted earlier in this thread.

Actually, it probably wouldn’t be terrible to outline some of the things that have caused the development of Sol to take much longer than normal. Here goes:
  • This is, by far, the most mechanically complex product we’ve attempted—it has 10x more mechanical parts than anything else we make
  • Sol has parts with tolerances down to 2 thousandths of an inch—far tighter than any previous product
  • This turntable features two very large aluminum castings, which required the production of tooling that’s approximately the size of a semi truck engine for each part—the development and tweaking of the tooling was a not-insignificant task, both for the casters and ourselves
  • It also has a complex mix of aluminum, brass, plastic, steel, carbon fiber, sorbothane, and rubber components, several of which have to be glued together in precision jigs—a level of materials engineering far in excess of anything we’ve done previously
  • Sol’s production process is a complete unknown—we’re still breaking down provisional steps and deciding who builds what at the moment, and this might…er, will change radically after we’ve made a few dozen
In short, this is a biiiigggg project, and we’re, to be honest, a little scared of it.

Which, frankly, is good for you. It means we aren’t rushing out a half-baked design, so full of ourselves that we think we can’t fail. Here’s the reality: we’ve never built a turntable. There are a lot of other turntable companies out there. We really, really need to offer you something different—and better—and make sure it’s as flawless as possible when it goes out. So we’re taking it very, very, very slow.


When I read the above passage, it shows me a company that is vested in the process and outcome, not looking to bring a me too product to the market, and create a new revenue stream for profitability. They are interested in offering quality engineering and manufacturing at a specific price point. What it will be is not known, so we will see where that leads.

Which leads us to the point that Stoddard and Moffat are operating with a high degree of transparency. Hobbyists and potential buyers get to have insights of how the process works for bringing a product to market. You also get to see the prototypes and follow along with the evaluation process of what can realistically be achieved.

You say the market already offers this kind of product since generations of tables are already offered.

It's hard to imagine how they're going to break new ground. Or what possible buyers might hope for from this design that's not available elsewhere, in dozens of other tables.

When I read the articles related to choices in final design between Conrad H and Moffat/Stoddard I see very practical and well reasoned choices made that balance production costs versus performance. The bearing in the table had indications of being a quality piece of engineering, and the bearing is a major contributor to overall noise floor in a table. Quality engineering and machining costs real money here, and they did not skimp. The platter has excellent mass for what is billed as an affordable table, and their use of materials and production techniques is promising. The tone arm is designed by Conrad H, the fellow that has laid out the arc protractor so many of us use, and has been around analog and this hobby a long time. I put some faith in his evaluations.

So many people say new turntables are just a rubber band and motor on a slab of MDF. Why can we not have REAL engineers building products that care about sound. Well you got it in this case, even if you do not like the final form factor. At this point it is time to wait and see what gets rolled out. I personally think its an interesting product. In many ways I see this table to be similar in concept to George Merrills PolyTable. And having more than one offering in the affordable high performance turntable arena is not a bad thing. I am not willing to make judgements about it till I hear it.

Cheers
Mister Pig
 
What is the speed accuracy of the RP3? Remarkably, their website show NO specifications for anything, inc. W/F, S/N, etc.. Could that really be?? I've never considered a Rega so I've never bothered looking for their specs.

Rega never posts specs on their turntables, though a few mags, owners, and independent reviewers have tested them. Speed accuracy in stock form is a known issue.
 
So many people say new turntables are just a rubber band and motor on a slab of MDF. Why can we not have REAL engineers building products that care about sound. Well you got it in this case, even if you do not like the final form factor. At this point it is time to wait and see what gets rolled out. I personally think its an interesting product. In many ways I see this table to be similar in concept to George Merrills PolyTable. And having more than one offering in the affordable high performance turntable arena is not a bad thing. I am not willing to make judgements about it till I hear it.

I'm with you. These new turntables, like Regas, Music Halls, etc do nothing for me. As far as I can tell, these new turntables exist because they're easy to produce for a small manufacturer. All the parts are either off the shelf or easily produced with relatively small scale CNC manufacturing.

These companies lack the resources that companies such as Pioneer, Denon, Yamaha and others had back in the heyday. The amount of engineering that went into something like a Kenwood 9010 was orders of magnitude more than any of those newer ones.
 
I'm with you. These new turntables, like Regas, Music Halls, etc do nothing for me. As far as I can tell, these new turntables exist because they're easy to produce for a small manufacturer. All the parts are either off the shelf or easily produced with relatively small scale CNC manufacturing.

These companies lack the resources that companies such as Pioneer, Denon, Yamaha and others had back in the heyday. The amount of engineering that went into something like a Kenwood 9010 was orders of magnitude more than any of those newer ones.

I would disagree that Rega does not have engineering resources. They appear to have substantial resources to draw upon, engineering/manufacturing/financial. And they weathered the supposed death of analog.

Cheers
Mister Pig
 
Last edited:
I would disagree that Rega does not have engineering rwsources. They appear to have substantial resources to draw upon, engineering/manufacturing/financial. And they weathered the supposed death of analog.

Cheers
Mister Pig

They certainly do relative to their competitors, but not so much compared to the big ones back in the heyday.
 
I think it's better for them to hear it NOW before they embark on an expensive and time consuming undertaking. ..

That ship has already sailed, and the investments have been made. From an article posted earlier in this thread.

Actually, it probably wouldn’t be terrible to outline some of the things that have caused the development of Sol to take much longer than normal. Here goes:
  • This is, by far, the most mechanically complex product we’ve attempted—it has 10x more mechanical parts than anything else we make
  • Sol has parts with tolerances down to 2 thousandths of an inch—far tighter than any previous product
  • This turntable features two very large aluminum castings, which required the production of tooling that’s approximately the size of a semi truck engine for each part—the development and tweaking of the tooling was a not-insignificant task, both for the casters and ourselves
  • It also has a complex mix of aluminum, brass, plastic, steel, carbon fiber, sorbothane, and rubber components, several of which have to be glued together in precision jigs—a level of materials engineering far in excess of anything we’ve done previously
  • Sol’s production process is a complete unknown—we’re still breaking down provisional steps and deciding who builds what at the moment, and this might…er, will change radically after we’ve made a few dozen
In short, this is a biiiigggg project, and we’re, to be honest, a little scared of it.

Which, frankly, is good for you. It means we aren’t rushing out a half-baked design, so full of ourselves that we think we can’t fail. Here’s the reality: we’ve never built a turntable. There are a lot of other turntable companies out there. We really, really need to offer you something different—and better—and make sure it’s as flawless as possible when it goes out. So we’re taking it very, very, very slow.


When I read the above passage, it shows me a company that is vested in the process and outcome, not looking to bring a me too product to the market, and create a new revenue stream for profitability. They are interested in offering quality engineering and manufacturing at a specific price point. What it will be is not known, so we will see where that leads.

Which leads us to the point that Stoddard and Moffat are operating with a high degree of transparency. Hobbyists and potential buyers get to have insights of how the process works for bringing a product to market. You also get to see the prototypes and follow along with the evaluation process of what can realistically be achieved.

You say the market already offers this kind of product since generations of tables are already offered.

It's hard to imagine how they're going to break new ground. Or what possible buyers might hope for from this design that's not available elsewhere, in dozens of other tables.

When I read the articles related to choices in final design between Conrad H and Moffat/Stoddard I see very practical and well reasoned choices made that balance production costs versus performance. The bearing in the table had indications of being a quality piece of engineering, and the bearing is a major contributor to overall noise floor in a table. Quality engineering and machining costs real money here, and they did not skimp. The platter has excellent mass for what is billed as an affordable table, and their use of materials and production techniques is promising. The tone arm is designed by Conrad H, the fellow that has laid out the arc protractor so many of us use, and has been around analog and this hobby a long time. I put some faith in his evaluations.

So many people say new turntables are just a rubber band and motor on a slab of MDF. Why can we not have REAL engineers building products that care about sound. Well you got it in this case, even if you do not like the final form factor. At this point it is time to wait and see what gets rolled out. I personally think its an interesting product. In many ways I see this table to be similar in concept to George Merrills PolyTable. And having more than one offering in the affordable high performance turntable arena is not a bad thing. I am not willing to make judgements about it till I hear it.

Cheers
Mister Pig
From what I've read so far this looks like an extremely promising project. They've set themselves the goal of producing a really first-class table within a reasonable price range and it seems to me they are making a lot of really good design decisions. I'm find it extremely interesting reading. Given the people involved this is definitely not going to be yet another copy-cat mid-tier table. There are a ton of great ideas in there and some very good bits as well. I don't need one, but I definitely want to hear one!
 
CH's involvement certainly gives it some credibility. Re: the similarity to Merill's polytable, yes there are similarities but also some pretty big differences. It's not surprising that the polytable costs more, though I would be surprised if GM sells more than double digits of them per year. At the end of the day we'll see what Schiit comes up with. It's probably not a table for me personally but might be a lower cost alternative to those in the market for something like a VPI Scout and so on.
 
That's one of the nicer shots I've seen. I'd love to say something illuminating but remember, my involvement is pretty limited lately as they work on getting production parts and and learn how to produce a more complex mechanical product. I do see some geometry issues that no doubt will be corrected- the cartridge is all the way out on the head shell slots and the arm is too close to the base casting, but the beauty of the design is that everything is adjustable. I was surprised they reprinted my words from so long ago (you can't imagine how long this thing has been in the works) and hopefully I don't sound like too much of an idiot, but be careful what you say or write, as it can always come back to haunt you!

I'd love to talk about the long and painful selection of a motor, but that's probably not my place. Suffice it to say there were more inexpensive off-the-shelf choices years ago than today. Today you have to go custom to get anything decent and affordable. When I started, I designed everything for very low volume production. I was shocked when Schiit decided to go out for castings, because the cost is crazy high, but that made things possible that were otherwise impractical or unaffordable. They're way more committed to Sol in terms of time and treasure than you might think.

On the subject of measurements, turntables are tough. Basically, if you can measure it, it should probably be improved until you can't. I spent many hours with accelerometers, looking at how the parts interacted and handled vibration, motor coupling and bearing noise. Naturally there were hours of listening tests and signal measurements. My test records are the same ones used back in the day, the CBS STR series and a few others. If things are done right, you often see the limitations of the records. In spite of all that, I wouldn't want to publish numbers for a prototype without testing production samples. It comes down to design choices based on how one thinks something should be done, design choices to meet cost goals and just the overall look and operation of the thing. If cost were not object many things might be done differently, but cost is an object. We'll see how well the original design translates into a production product. This is absolutely not the table for everyone, but hopefully it will please the people that get the concept.
 
That's one of the nicer shots I've seen. I'd love to say something illuminating but remember, my involvement is pretty limited lately as they work on getting production parts and and learn how to produce a more complex mechanical product. I do see some geometry issues that no doubt will be corrected- the cartridge is all the way out on the head shell slots and the arm is too close to the base casting, but the beauty of the design is that everything is adjustable. I was surprised they reprinted my words from so long ago (you can't imagine how long this thing has been in the works) and hopefully I don't sound like too much of an idiot, but be careful what you say or write, as it can always come back to haunt you!

I'd love to talk about the long and painful selection of a motor, but that's probably not my place. Suffice it to say there were more inexpensive off-the-shelf choices years ago than today. Today you have to go custom to get anything decent and affordable. When I started, I designed everything for very low volume production. I was shocked when Schiit decided to go out for castings, because the cost is crazy high, but that made things possible that were otherwise impractical or unaffordable. They're way more committed to Sol in terms of time and treasure than you might think.

On the subject of measurements, turntables are tough. Basically, if you can measure it, it should probably be improved until you can't. I spent many hours with accelerometers, looking at how the parts interacted and handled vibration, motor coupling and bearing noise. Naturally there were hours of listening tests and signal measurements. My test records are the same ones used back in the day, the CBS STR series and a few others. If things are done right, you often see the limitations of the records. In spite of all that, I wouldn't want to publish numbers for a prototype without testing production samples. It comes down to design choices based on how one thinks something should be done, design choices to meet cost goals and just the overall look and operation of the thing. If cost were not object many things might be done differently, but cost is an object. We'll see how well the original design translates into a production product. This is absolutely not the table for everyone, but hopefully it will please the people that get the concept.
Thanks for your comments!
 
This is why AK is so cool. The fact that @ConradH is commenting here adds a ton to the conversation, and while I guess he can’t say too much, it does add a new element to seeing the story of a product being developed from an idea all the way to production. While I honestly don’t know if I’ll be in the market for Sol, it’s really fun to get a peak “under the hood” and hear from a person who had a direct hand in the design of a product.
I’m genuinely curious what @elcoholic thought of the ‘table, and I’m excited to see what will be brought to market.
 
Back
Top Bottom