Does anyone have any experience with the Pro-Ject Vinyl NRS Box S3?
I’ve quite a few older vinyl LP’s (I like to trawl the charity shops for records) and some of them are still quite crackly despite cleaning. This seems to be a relatively cheap and “magic” solution and I already have a Pro-Ject Debut-Pro turntable so I know Pro-Ject produce some good kit, just looking for any experience with this item before jumping in?
FWIW the rest of my system is iFi Zen phono stage, Uniti-Star and Focal Aria 926 speakers
I didn’t have any experience of this product, but the prime question would be whether the treated signal is better to your ears than the untreated, and it is worth noting that some people are more tolerant of, or more able to ignore, surface noise from vinyl, so others’ experiences may be of only limited value. If vinyl is your only source and thorough (wet)cleaning hasn’t resolved, and replacement of discs either isn’t an option or finding noise-free discs is a challenge, then can you have on a trial basis, or at least take a selection of discs with different degrees of noise to hear with and without the device at a dealer? I would expect some audible effect on the music as well, perhaps most likely of reduction of some part of treble, and you would have to see if that is an acceptable cost for the degree of noise reduction.
Surface noise is a prime reason for my abandonment of vinyl, all records having some, and increasing with use. When I ripped my LPs I used Audacity to clean them up digitally. I could remove pops and scratches without any obvious audible effect (other than their absence!), though in some cases doing so manually was more effective than the software’s ability to do automatically, and that might be the case with Pro-Ject - though even a reduction if not always complete is an improvement. Removing background hiss/crackle was less effective, also reducing treble, and I only applied in the worst cases, those albums subsequently replaced by purchased digital copies.