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Post by deehope on Jun 22, 2021 19:56:11 GMT -6
and they're also rarely on the used market. Anyone have one they're willing to part with?
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Post by svart on Jun 23, 2021 8:29:56 GMT -6
Resurrecting this thread to give svart more props on these converters. I’ve had my two Svartboxes disconnected for a couple years cuz I ran out of digital connections on my multi-UA Apollo rig. Finally hooked them back up today via the Apollo 8 ADAT connection (using an RME ADI4 DD and a slew of adapters) and bottom line... Svart’s converters still slay in 2021!! Beautiful sounding... deep, wide, clear, musical... and just SWEET!! Still loving these things. It is to bad Savart didn’t market that thing better, of course if he did it would have been Lavry, Mytek money. From the limited time I heard it the thing is impressive as anything. It's extremely hard to market something so niche. I spoke to multiple reps and they said "can't sell it unless it has XXXX" and each one said something completely different. One said it positively needed USB and signal meters, another said it had to have XLR connections and WC I/O, etc. All of them said it should look like another company's product. None of them were interested in something that wasn't like something else. Very strange. There was also the fact that I would have to go into larger scale production which either meant hiring folks ($$$ outlay), quitting the day job ($$$$ lost), or using contract manufacturing ($$$$ outlay and huge loss of already thin profits as well as redevelopment of chassis, etc). But the biggest thing was the number of chinese converters like Topping, etc, popping up. I can't compete with those prices. The price those sell for was my COGS (cost of goods sold)! And a number of members here bought those instead of buying my converters, so it's one of those decisions that folks hate to make but make sense. Can't compete on price on the cheap chinese stuff, but can't compete with the expensive stuff because of features or production volume. Either one would have necessitated huge outlays of cash on my part for questionable returns in the future. |
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Post by svart on Jun 23, 2021 8:32:18 GMT -6
and they're also rarely on the used market. Anyone have one they're willing to part with? People seem to keep them and use them. So far only one unit has had an issue, and that was a faulty LCD. |
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Post by drsax on Jun 24, 2021 0:36:24 GMT -6
It is to bad Savart didn’t market that thing better, of course if he did it would have been Lavry, Mytek money. From the limited time I heard it the thing is impressive as anything. It's extremely hard to market something so niche. I spoke to multiple reps and they said "can't sell it unless it has XXXX" and each one said something completely different. One said it positively needed USB and signal meters, another said it had to have XLR connections and WC I/O, etc. All of them said it should look like another company's product. None of them were interested in something that wasn't like something else. Very strange. There was also the fact that I would have to go into larger scale production which either meant hiring folks ($$$ outlay), quitting the day job ($$$$ lost), or using contract manufacturing ($$$$ outlay and huge loss of already thin profits as well as redevelopment of chassis, etc). But the biggest thing was the number of chinese converters like Topping, etc, popping up. I can't compete with those prices. The price those sell for was my COGS (cost of goods sold)! And a number of members here bought those instead of buying my converters, so it's one of those decisions that folks hate to make but make sense. Can't compete on price on the cheap chinese stuff, but can't compete with the expensive stuff because of features or production volume. Either one would have necessitated huge outlays of cash on my part for questionable returns in the future. Makes perfect sense svart - grateful to have a couple units here! |
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Post by stratboy on Jul 1, 2021 17:12:31 GMT -6
I love mine. My Svartbox and my Silver Bullet were the only keepers when I shrank my studio.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,083 
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Post by ericn on Jul 1, 2021 21:26:40 GMT -6
It is to bad Savart didn’t market that thing better, of course if he did it would have been Lavry, Mytek money. From the limited time I heard it the thing is impressive as anything. It's extremely hard to market something so niche. I spoke to multiple reps and they said "can't sell it unless it has XXXX" and each one said something completely different. One said it positively needed USB and signal meters, another said it had to have XLR connections and WC I/O, etc. All of them said it should look like another company's product. None of them were interested in something that wasn't like something else. Very strange. There was also the fact that I would have to go into larger scale production which either meant hiring folks ($$$ outlay), quitting the day job ($$$$ lost), or using contract manufacturing ($$$$ outlay and huge loss of already thin profits as well as redevelopment of chassis, etc). But the biggest thing was the number of chinese converters like Topping, etc, popping up. I can't compete with those prices. The price those sell for was my COGS (cost of goods sold)! And a number of members here bought those instead of buying my converters, so it's one of those decisions that folks hate to make but make sense. Can't compete on price on the cheap chinese stuff, but can't compete with the expensive stuff because of features or production volume. Either one would have necessitated huge outlays of cash on my part for questionable returns in the future. Yeah I know, but you know you had a home run with this one bro, it’s just to bad nobody was in the stands. The fact is even though I know all the work you put in you made it look easy. As much as at times we are in complete disagreement you know I’m sitting here waiting to see what the hell you think of next. That is the biggest difference between here and GS, here we love and support those who build great products vs those who have great marketing! |
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Post by chunger on Feb 21, 2022 0:30:02 GMT -6
2022 resurrection of the svart converter thread  So, I pulled my copy out of the original packaging recently. I was 100% onboard with this project from the beginning, and was fully expecting it to be a PCB and a bag of components that I had to put together, but what I received a few months later was a turn-key unit beautifully executed. My copy had only been run for some testing in a studio environment because my friend who's home I built the studio in preferred the the Lavry blues that he was running previously to the SVART unit. My recording studio dreams are not really alive at this point, but I wanted to run a pair of BBSM10's that I had squirreled away just to listen to some things again pushing sound into a room. I recall seeing that there was a version built that tilted a little more towards the "saucy" colored preference. I was wondering if I could know what a BOM and component swap scheme would look like to modify my stock SVART AD/DA unit from "the truth" to "the fun". I love that this is still a completely relevant piece of uncompromising audio equipment today, and I want to play with it. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 21, 2022 14:31:44 GMT -6
maybe you could run a little daughter board off a switch for std and mod ?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 21, 2022 14:56:39 GMT -6
Since this thread was revived, I've been wondering if the very highly rated Pro-Ject converters can be used with an Apollo.
Their converters have been giant killers in tests, and at $400, maybe it would be a good substitute for a Burl or Dangerous converter until I can afford one. I don't even know if it can be hooked up for recording or not.
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Post by svart on Feb 21, 2022 15:24:14 GMT -6
Since this thread was revived, I've been wondering if the very highly rated Pro-Ject converters can be used with an Apollo. Their converters have been giant killers in tests, and at $400, maybe it would be a good substitute for a Burl or Dangerous converter until I can afford one. I don't even know if it can be hooked up for recording or not. Based on what I know about them, they would be closer to my converter in sonics than a Burl since they are closer in overall design to my converter. However, the early Pro-Ject converters I looked at back when I was building my converters had reliability issues. I'm sure they've figured that out by now since they have almost doubled in price since then and are now more comparable in price to my converter when I sold them. I mean, one of the very reasons I stopped making my converters was that the chinese were massively undercutting my prices with their new and cheaper converters. They were selling them for less than I could buy the parts to build my converters and I know a handful of folks here who were in line to purchase mine ended up declining and buying the topping/pro-ject ones instead. |
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Post by svart on Feb 21, 2022 15:31:27 GMT -6
2022 resurrection of the svart converter thread So, I pulled my copy out of the original packaging recently. I was 100% onboard with this project from the beginning, and was fully expecting it to be a PCB and a bag of components that I had to put together, but what I received a few months later was a turn-key unit beautifully executed. My copy had only been run for some testing in a studio environment because my friend who's home I built the studio in preferred the the Lavry blues that he was running previously to the SVART unit. My recording studio dreams are not really alive at this point, but I wanted to run a pair of BBSM10's that I had squirreled away just to listen to some things again pushing sound into a room. I recall seeing that there was a version built that tilted a little more towards the "saucy" colored preference. I was wondering if I could know what a BOM and component swap scheme would look like to modify my stock SVART AD/DA unit from "the truth" to "the fun". I love that this is still a completely relevant piece of uncompromising audio equipment today, and I want to play with it. I don't have any suggestions for this offhand because I didn't keep any notes on the filters I didn't keep in the production design. The components are RC into and out of the buffer amps on the ADC board. The components are 0402 sized and the capacitors are PPS film which means that they required special soldering to keep from melting. At the risk of raising audiophile blood pressures, you could change to NP0/C0G ceramic without any sonic differences, IMHO. Once you touch those PPS caps they'll be toast though. I could give you the original values and you could try your luck on refactoring the C component of the RC filters (easier to do without changing the gain of the stage) but if you damaged the PCB, I don't have any to replace it with! |
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So, I pulled my copy out of the original packaging recently. I was 100% onboard with this project from the beginning, and was fully expecting it to be a PCB and a bag of components that I had to put together, but what I received a few months later was a turn-key unit beautifully executed. My copy had only been run for some testing in a studio environment because my friend who's home I built the studio in preferred the the Lavry blues that he was running previously to the SVART unit. My recording studio dreams are not really alive at this point, but I wanted to run a pair of BBSM10's that I had squirreled away just to listen to some things again pushing sound into a room. I recall seeing that there was a version built that tilted a little more towards the "saucy" colored preference. I was wondering if I could know what a BOM and component swap scheme would look like to modify my stock SVART AD/DA unit from "the truth" to "the fun".
