Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in California

Yeah, we know. Sol doesn’t look like any other affordable turntable in the world. That’s because it’s designed to deliver the most amazing performance possible for the bucks, without regard to how it “should” look. If you want a normal-looking turntable, there are tons of choices. If you want the best performance for your investment, there’s only one choice: Sol.

Engineered Specifically for Performance

Sol is the result of 6 years of R&D at Schiit Audio. Some may say we’re just slow (and that may be true), but Sol also went through many iterations to reach its final form. That’s how we landed on something completely unique, a true unconstrained unipivot design based on aluminum die castings, with not a piece of MDF or acrylic in sight. That’s also how we decided to include an insane amount of high-end features, like on-the-fly adjustable VTA.

Separate Motor Pod

As an example of our dedication to performance, Sol’s motor is completely separated from the plinth and platter, housed in a separate, sorbothane-isolated pod that completely decouples it from the rest of the turntable. A Poron foam platter mat completes the isolation from environmental vibration

Longest Arm in the Hood—Swappable in Seconds

Sol features a carbon fiber tonearm that is longer than anything else in its price class—a full 11” long. A longer arm means more accurate tracking—much better than the “baby arms” of other affordable turntables. Not only that, the Sol tonearm can be swapped in seconds, allowing you to set up multiple cartridges on multiple tonearms for your specific needs.

Total Adjustability for Every Need

Sol was also designed to help you extract the maximum performance from every cartridge. Literally everything is adjustable. From on-the-fly VTA, cartridge angle, anti-skate, and even tonearm pivot height, platter height, and motor pulley height, we have you covered. You’ll be comfortable using an expensive cartridge with Sol, knowing you’re getting the most out of it.

Ideal For Turntable Owners Looking For More

If you already own an inexpensive turntable, but you’re looking for maximum performance (without a second mortgage), Sol is perfect for you. Choose Sol with a Grado Platinum2 Reference cartridge already set up and ready to go, or go without a cartridge, choose your own, and set it up to the nth degree with the help of our videos.

Designed and Built in California

By “designed and built in California" this is what we mean: the vast majority of the total production cost of Sol—including the die-cast aluminum pieces, machined and stamped metal pieces, boards, assembly, etc—goes to US companies manufacturing in the US. Our castings are done just beyond the Orange Curtain, many subassemblies are done in Simi Valley, and assembly, adjustment, and testing are done by us in Valencia, CA. You get the picture.

5-Year Warranty, Easy Returns

Sol is also covered by a 5-year limited warranty that covers parts and labor (with a single exception: belts. Come on, do you really think a turntable belt will last 5 years? And if you don’t like your Sol, you can send it back for a refund, minus 5% restocking fee, within 15 days of receiving it.

Whoa, you finally got this thing out, huh?
Yes, I know, we’re slow. We’ve been talking about this since the earth cooled, pretty much.

So I should just get this and I’ll be good to smoke all them MDF tables?

Not exactly. Unless you choose Sol with a cartridge, you’ll have to choose a cartridge, set it up, and make sure you have a good phono preamp. And then yes, you’ll be on a much more highly capable and adjustable platform that will allow you to get the most out of your--

Zzzzzzzzzz…

Oh sorry, are we boring you?

It just seems like a lot of work, doing all that to set up Sol.

Cool. Maybe you should just stick to Qobuz. That’s plenty easy, and you don’t even have to buy any records.

Nah man you don’t get it, I’m serious about vinyl, I hang out at the local vinyl shop every day, got a bunch of 180 gram hot pressings, hell, I have a tattoo of a whole stack of records on my right glute, its just well, the last turntable I bought had everything set up, I just took it out and started playing records.

Cool. But that ain’t Sol.

Buuuuuuttttt…aren’t you sposed to sell me on how greatness your turntable does, and why I just gotta have it, and can’t I just check all the expensive options and be done with it?

LOL. You don’t know us very well, do you? We have exactly zero salespeople. We don’t have anyone with sales in their title, period. Bottom line, like we said, if you want ultimate performance for a price that won’t jeopardize your kid’s college fund, Sol is it. And with Sol, you need to set it up, and make sure you have a good phono preamp. If that’s not what you’re looking for, or if you have a trust fund so big that it would shade 9% of the earth’s surface if run off as $100 bills, then yeah, we get it, it’s best to look elsewhere. No hard feelings.

Sigh. Okay, I’ll bite. What do I need to get the most out of Sol?

A cartridge (unless you choose the Grado Platinum2 Reference, which also nets you $50 off the price of Sol), a phono preamp, and a bit of patience.

Which cartridge?

Any one you like. We offer the Grado Reference Platinum2 as a standard option—and we give you $50 off the price of Sol if you choose that cartridge—but you can also choose no cartridge at all and save some money. The main thing is, you can spend $100 or $1000 on a cartridge for Sol, and be assured the turntable isn’t holding the cartridge back.

What’s a phono preamp? I just plugged my old turntable into my receiver.

A phono preamp is a preamp that provides the high gain and equalization necessary for records. Some receivers, preamps, and integrated amps will have phono preamps built in. Some phono preamps are stand-alone. We sell a very versatile and affordable phono preamp called “Mani,” but there are plenty of them out there. Mani is available as an option when you buy Sol. Or not. No worries!

And why do I need patience?

Because, unless you choose to have your Sol shipped to you with a cartridge, you have to set up Sol for your specific cartridge. We do a basic setup at the factory, but you’ll still need to align the cartridge, set the VTA, and set the tracking force. You may need to do a few more tweaks to get it 110% perfect, too. But we cover how to do all of that on the videos at schiit-com/sol-videos

Why is this turntable worth putting all that time into?

Again, to get higher performance.

How? How is it different than every other entry-level turntable?

Great question. Sol is completely different. Let’s compare:

Die-cast aluminum vs MDF and acrylic. Sol is made of large aluminum die-castings, which are heavy and dense when compared to the typical MDF and acrylic starter table.
Giant bearing, vs baby bearing. Unless you’re talking cost-no-object turntable designs, the critical platter bearing is usually, well, somewhat anemic. Frequently based on the 0.28” record spindle, they may only have an effective 0.5-1” height. Sol’s is a ridiculously overdeveloped 0.5” diameter, 2.5” long inverted bearing with Igus bushings, for much higher performance.
Giant arm vs baby arm. In turntables, tonearm length is all-important. Sol’s 11” arm beats the living crap out of other entry turntables with 8.X-10” arms.
Easily swappable arm, vs arm that’s permanently attached. Have more than one cartridge? Get additional (very affordable) Sol tonearms and set them all up, for cartridge swaps in seconds.
True unconstrained unipivot vs other schemes. Other entry turntables use constrained unipivots, kinda killing the advantages of a unipivot—namely, the unique freedom of motion it provides—or conventional designs, which don’t work like a unipivot.
Totally isolated motor, vs bolted to the plinth. No entry turntable can match Sol’s freedom from rumble, because the motor is completely separate.
On-the-fly adjustable VTA, versus, well, maybe some VTA adjustment when the table isn’t moving. Sol is the only turntable anywhere near its price to include this insanely high-end feature, allowing you to precisely dial in the performance—while listening.
Complete adjustability, vs limited adjustability. Since literally every parameter of the Sol turntable is adjustable, it can accommodate virtually any cartridge, including those that are thicker or thinner than usual.
5-year warranty. On a mechanical product? For $799? GTFOH. Nobody is anywhere near that.

Holy moly, that’s a lot of value. How do you do that?

Same way we do everything: by making tons of them, and selling direct. And, in this case, by investing the big bucks for the die-cast tooling. Without tooling, this is a no-go. But hey, we’ve been working on this thing since the earth cooled (and, like idiots, talking about it), so what’s another bunch of money burnt along the way? Seriously, though, we hope you like Sol as much as we do, and we hope you feel it’s worth the time to get amazing music out of.

Hey, I watched the video, and I wanna get one of those handy-dandy stylus force gauges. Where do I get one?
There are plenty of them available on Amazon (and pretty much anywhere else you might want to buy them). Look for "Stylus force gauge." They range from $15 to "how much you got?"

Hey, I watched the video, and I wanna do a different cartridge alignment, not Lofgren A. How do I go about doing that?
See the Downloads section and follow the link to Conrad Hoffman's Arc Template Generator. You can also purchase many other different alignment discs, mirrors, etc. if you'd like to. You aren't stuck with a specific alignment with Sol.

I'm confused about the anti-skate option. How do I use that?
There are several ways to set it up, starting with a Trackability Test Record (Shure made one.) You listen to a track with ever increasing levels. At some point it will get slightly harsh in one channel, then the other. Adjust the anti-skate force so that both channels become harsh at the same time. Try not to let it get into full mistracking. Another way is to use a blank vinyl record and adjust for minimum drift. .

I see you have an option for a phono preamp? What's special about that?

The phono preamp option is for Mani, our MM/MC phono preamp. It's very versatile, compact, and it's painted black to match Sol. Other than that, feel free to use any phono preamp you want.

I see you have an option for an extra tonearm. Why is that?
Because some people have more than one cartridge, and they'll want to set up multiple cartridges for easy tonearm swapping. You can also buy tonearms separately if you want later, there's no price penalty.

Why isn't there an option for 230V countries?

Sol uses an AC motor, so it's designed for 60Hz AC, like we use in the USA. Unfortunately, nearly every country with 220-240VAC runs 50Hz AC, so the motor would run too slow. When we have a 50Hz version of the motor, we'll open up ordering for international voltages.

What is Sol?

In Norse mythology, Sol is the personification of the sun. That’s like Mani, which is the moon. We picked them both because they went together and were both round, like a record. Sometimes we’re simple like that.

Sol

Cast Aluminum Unipivot Turntable

$699

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