If you’re not familiar with Schiit, they are much more than just audiophile double entendre. Schiit offers a high-value direct consumer audiophile brand, designing and building all of their products in the United States. The Skoll F is Schiit Audio’s mid-level phonostage priced at $399. This balanced phono preamplifier (actually balanced, not just with balanced connections) supports moving magnet, moving coil, and even moving iron cartridges. The Schiit Skoll F also allows you to configure the input for balanced or single-ended inputs. You can choose the gain level, resistive load, and capacitive load. There is a subsonic filter, which is intended to smooth out the sound from vinyl that is sadly warped.
Additionally, this phonostage comes with a remote control, and it is enabled to use Schiit’s Forkbeard platform. Forkbeard is a platform Schiit has built that allows you to control your gear from your phone without having to create an account. Forkbeard (a $50 add-on) is a small stick that gets inserted into the device that allows you to do the same things you can do with the remote control, just from your phone or tablet. There are a lot of phono preamplifiers and phonostages in this price range on the market, so let’s take a closer look at the Schiit Skoll F.
What Makes the Schiit Skoll F Phonostage So Special?
- The Schiit Skoll F phonostage is fully balanced. Being able to get a fully balanced phono preamplifier at this price is amazing. Other brands in this price range will have balanced inputs and outputs, but the circuits are not balanced.
- Having a remote control is great. Being able to adjust the configuration of the phonostage from the listening position is always welcome. No matter what you need to adjust from the volume to the capacitive load, being able to hear the change without getting up and then sitting back down again makes configuring a new cartridge easy.
- Being able to configure the input impedance and input capacitance ensures you get the optimal performance from your cartridge. The standard phonostage found in an integrated amplifier or turntable passively equalizes the sound. However, it also needs to normalize the impedance and capacitance coming from your cartridge. This can result in your vinyl not sounding as good as it could or should. By configuring these settings, you can ensure you’re getting the sound the manufacturer intended from your cartridge.
- The Schiit Skoll F delivers a subsonic filter. Schiit keep their subsonic filter very simple. It is either on or off. A subsonic filter might not be the reason you buy a phonostage, but having one is great, especially as vinyl wears down. So, whether your collection has been well-loved and is starting to break down, or you are someone who loves buying vinyl secondhand, having a filter that will help smooth over some of the warts is great.
Why Should You Care About the Schiit Skoll F Phonostage?
A high-performance audiophile phonostage is something every vinyl lover should own. You should be looking for one that is not just feature-rich, but one that, when you put the needle down into the groove of your vinyl. let’s you know that you’ve got upgraded and more authentic sound. Schiit finds a great balance of these two ideals in the Skoll F. You can modify the load settings and the gain, which is table stakes at this price range, and the sound that the Skoll F reproduces is very enjoyable.
Some Things You Might Not Like About the Schiit Skoll F Phonostage
- The symbols on the Schiit Skoll F aren’t overly intuitive. The numbered items on the front of the phonostage are easy enough to follow, but the other ones are not quite as easy. I found Forkbeard didn’t help this much either, as you just had a bunch of symbols without anything else to help you understand what the setting was you were going to change until you hit the right button and then could see the setting that had been modified. Otherwise, you really need to consult the manual to know what everything is.
- The Schiit Skoll F phonostage doesn’t have a volume knob. You can adjust the gain right from the front of the Skoll F, but it lacks a knob for you to make fine adjustments to the volume. With that said, you can make adjustments to the volume from the remote control that Schiit includes, but it will adjust in 10 dB steps.
Listening to the Schiit Skoll F Phono Preamplifier …
I ran Schiit Skoll F phonostage with my Pro-Ject X1 B turntable, which uses a Sumiko Rainier cartridge. I ran the Schiit Skoll F into my Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2 amplifier with the sound coming out of my Paradigm Premier 700F floorstanding speakers. I used Wireworld’s Oasis 10 interconnect cables to run from the turntable (unbalanced) to the phonostage, and from the phonostage to the power amplifier (balanced/XLR).
I started my more intensive listening with a Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” from his 1972 album Talking Book. I came across this vinyl album a few years back secondhand and, when I got it home, I realized it wasn’t in as good shape as I thought it was when I found it. This is one of the reasons why you might want a phonostage. From the moment I dropped the needle, the track sounded great. The opening drum line and bass sounded full and deep. Wonder’s playing of the Clavinent model C sounded as funky and fluid as ever. The subsonic filter helped clean up some of the extra noise that I had noticed in the past, due to the poor shape of the vinyl, but it certainly wasn’t a miracle worker, as you still got the some of the pop and hiss that is going to be there when a 50-plus-year-old record hasn’t been properly cared for.
Whenever I am reviewing something with vinyl, I love digging up Eric Clapton’s “Layla” (on vinyl) from his 2021 album Lady in the Balcony. This is technically a live recording, but because this album was recorded during the COVID-19 lockdown, it was recorded in a studio with no audience, so you don’t get the crowd noise that you get from a typical live album. If you are not familiar with this track, Clapton wrote it while courting George Harrison’s first wife and trying to convince her to leave George. Clapton originally recorded the track as part of Derek and the Dominos and then recorded it again as part of his MTV Unplugged appearance in 1992, before reviving the track once more for this session. When listening to this track, the details that you can pick up from this recording were magnificent and the track was very enjoyable to listen to. As soon as the bass track came in at the start of the song, a smile immediately came to my face. I was able to hear the backing vocals in the chorus, which I hadn’t picked up previously. Again, the bass track was deep, and you could pick up all the details from the midrange, while Clapton’s guitar sounded very clean throughout the track. I have listened to this track across many different phono preamplifiers and phono stages and, with the Skoll F in the signal path, it was easily the best it has sounded.
I tested the Schiit Skoll F phonostage with “E Street Shuffle” from Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 album The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. This is the opening track on the album. What caught my attention right away was how deep a sound the Skoll F was able to reproduce from the tuba note that is played around the 14-second mark of the track. I swapped out the Skoll F for some of the other phonostages that I had for review to validate that I was hearing deeper bass, and none of the other three that I had went as low. As a whole, this track sounded very musical, as you can easily hear all the different instruments, of which this track uses more than 10.
Will the Schiit Skoll F Phonostage Hold Its Value?
In this price range, I wouldn’t have high expectations for resale value, but who really cares, as it is such an affordable audiophile component. If you can get half of your money back after a few years of use, then you have likely done well, but we are only talking about $200. You may just as well choose to give the phonostage to someone else and save yourself the hassle of trying to find a buyer. At the same time, with the phonostage being able to handle three different types of cartridges, it should be able to grow with you through your audio journey for more than a few years before you move on.
What is the Competition for the Schiit Skoll F Phono Preamplifier?
The iFi Zen Phono 3 ($250 buy at Crutchfield) is a little less than the Schiit phono preamplifier, but it has many of the same features. At this price, however, it isn’t fully balanced, and if you want to use a balanced output, you will need to find an adapter for their 4.4-mm input. One advantage that iFi has over the competition is its size. If you’re not using a rack, the Zen Phono 3 is easy enough to hide if you’re looking to not have a lot of visual clutter.
The Pro-Ject PhonoBox S3 B ($499 buy at Crutchfield) is a very direct competitor to the Schiit Skoll F. The Pro-Ject has all the same features on paper, but it isn’t truly balanced in terms of operation. It also uses a proprietary input coming from the turntable, which could make it difficult for you to find an appropriate cable. If you are using a Pro-Ject balanced turntable, though, you might want to consider it as an option, as some of my objections resolve themselves.
The Mobile Fidelity UltraPhono ($499 buy t Crutchfield) is also worth a look in this price range. This phono preamplifier checks many of the same boxes as the others in this price range, but a unique thing that you can do with the UltraPhono is run everything in mono if you wish. It also comes with a headphone input. MoFi is known for seeking out some of the industry’s best designers for their gear, so I would expect a high level of performance.
Final Thoughts on the Schiit Skoll F Phonostage …
As a reviewer, every now and then, you get a component in for evaluation that, after a short period of time, you realize it must be yours. The Schiit Skoll F was exactly that for me. I have been reviewing phonostages for the last few months, hoping to get a little more out of my vinyl collection. While all the components I have had in hand have outperformed what I have heard from what is built into preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers, the Skoll F outperformed the other three, and in a very noticeable way. Over the few weeks that I spent listening to vinyl with the Schiit Skoll F in the signal chain, there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t impressed, and I found myself wanting to listen to my whole collection over again to see what details I might be able to pick out that I hadn’t previously. This is a real testament to Schiit Audio. It isn’t often that you come across a $400 component that makes a remarkable change in the sound of your audio, but Skoll F did that for my vinyl collection. More important, my enjoyment of music increased with my ever-evolving audiophile reference system.
