This page is a work in progress - new posts and comments are continually being added ...
Here, you will find an information resource relating to all things Schroeder.
About the Wait
It's difficult to wait for your Schroeder once you've made your decision to own one. We understand this. All we can offer
is that your wait will be rewarded.
As you ponder whether a Schroeder is worth the wait, consider the number you've ever seen on the used market. Schroeders are
forever.
Frank works diligently to keep his delivery schedule under control. As a one-man operation, it can vary. Check our
Order Page for udates on delivery times for all products we carry. Frank tries to be fair to
worldwide demand which means very few Schroeders are shipped to the United States on an annual basis.
A Reference tonearm takes about 40 hours to produce. Factor in Frank's attendance at several trade shows, a vacation, and you can
easily calculate the yearly number of tonearms distributed worldwide.
Some distributors may tell you of shorter waits for a Schroeder. To this, we can only answer that a Reference tonearm cannot typically
be pre-ordered. There are too many choices to be made for a distributor to guess at his customers' choices.
While it's a fairly safe bet that a Reference with either a Bocote or Jacaranda arm wand will suit 95% of our customers, they are
also the most discriminating individuals. There are other choices to be made: wiring, finishing options, counterweight construction
(VTF fine adjust), termination, etc. Factoring in the Reference "SQ" variation further complicates pre-ordering.
With the DPS, it gets a bit simpler as there are fewer options to anticipate.
It's simpler yet with the Model-2. To fill out our yearly allotment, we will typically order a couple of Pertinax arm wand Model-2's
for inventory sometime in the middle of the year. To date however, even this has not improved the waiting time because they are scarcely
ordered by us before someone commits to them.
One thing we can offer is to fabricate a Galibier armboard for your interim tonearm at no charge. Talk to us.
Ease of Setup
After brief familiarization with their innovative design approach, you will observe how extraordinarily easy all models are
to set up and adjust. While an analog rig certainly benefits from the attention and care of someone expert in its setup,
these designs are a statement in simplicity, ergonomics, and design elegance.
The single new trick one must learn for all of the models is their greatest virtue - magnetic damping adjustment. In
comparison with silicone damped arms, the ease of adjustment is like shifting from a 1-turn to a 10-turn potentiometer
... perhaps even more precise.
We have found most silicone damping arrangements to be crude, hit and miss affairs. Not so with the magnetic damping in
the Schroeder. For perhaps the first time, you will find yourself dialing in the damping without questioning
whether you've under or overshot the mark.
The DPS and Model-2 give up a bit of convenience in order to provide as much performance as possible at their respective price
points.
Arm Wand Material
One of the most frequent questions we receive relates to the choice of arm wand material and effective mass for your cartridge.
The short answer is that Jacaranda and Tiger Wood (15 grams in 239 mm eff. length) along with Bocote (12 grams) cover the wide
range of popular moving coil cartridges.
It is for this reason that the two materials selected for the DPS are Jacaranda and Bocote. Both materials available for
the Model-2 (carbon fiber and Pertinax) have a 12 gram effective mass.
The Reference and DPS are supplied with a brass cartridge carrier which is optional for the Model-2. This further extends the
cartridge compatibility range of your Schroeder Tonearm by increasing the effective mass by 5 grams.
If we were to generalize our advice about mass, it would be to select Jacaranda or Tiger Wood for the Reference/DPS in a 239mm
effective length (15 grams), and Pertinax for the Model-2 (12 grams). This will cover the range from the Benz / Shelter range
of cartridge to Koetsu, Lyra, ZYX, Ortofon SPU, etc.
Sonic signature
After sealing and treatment, there is no sonic difference between the various woods.
Material selection is based entirely on mass/compliance as well as aesthetics. You may for example prefer a long arm (we'll
have more to say about length). This would require specification of a lighter wood then you would select for a 9" long wand.
Carbon fiber has a more "energetic" sound than wood or Pertinax. The alternate choice on the Model-2 is Pertinax - a resin
impregnated paper which is very similar sonically to wood.
First Impressions
You can read my first impressions of a Reference arm here
- impressions which have only been confirmed with the passage of time.
Coming Soon ...
We are beginning to compile a database of users' comments as well as a list of ideal arm wand masses for various cartridges.
We'll soon be publishing this here.
