A beautiful thing

The ultimate LP player

There are many ways of reproducing music stored in the grooves of your vinyl LP records, but surely none more impressive – visually, mechanically and aurally – than the Clearaudio Statement. IT’S THE AUDIO EQUIVALENT

of the cost-no-object Swiss timepiece. Or the ultra-luxurious Maybach automobile. In short, a design that elevates an industrial product to the realm of art.

Based in Erlangen, Germany, Clearaudio makes a range of highend audiophile products that includes turntables, tonearms, phono cartridges, phonostages, amplifiers, accessories and audiophile vinyl records. CEO Robert Suchy visited South Africa late last year to introduce locals to the new V2 version of the company’s flagship product. Suchy’s father founded the business 40 years ago and is still involved, as are Suchy Jr’s brother and sister.

Launched last year, the current V2 model is said to be even better than the 2006 original. Elements such as speed control circuitry, spindle, motor pulley and drive belt have been redesigned and every part of the Statement system is developed in-house.

All of this carries an eye-watering price tag of 140 000 euros. But, bear in mind that this does include the matching arm and cartridge (the deck can in fact accommodate four arms for those who like to mix and match their cartridges). And your purchase price includes having a senior member of the Clearaudio team travel to wherever in the world you are to set up your Statement.

If you order now, you will have to wait up to six months for delivery. All 350 kilograms of it. Even the packaging – the components arrive in two massive wooden crates – is enormously heavy and reinforced to be able to withstand being dropped. “You don’t need insurance against theft,” Suchy says. “No burglar will be able to carry this away.”

The Statement’s jaw-dropping architecture showcases a massive, highly damped integrated stand, based around four stainless steel pillars. Its sandwich construction features aluminium plates filled with Panzerholz, a high-density bullet-proof manufactured wood that is prized for its acoustic damping properties. In the top layers of the stand, thousands of embedded metal ball bearings help to control resonance.

The high-speed microprocessorcontrolled motor used to drive the sub-platter drew directly on the technology used to propel the Mars Rover. Apart from the gee-whiz factor, this design is intended to provide unmatched speed stability.

But there is no mechanical connection between platter and drive motor. Instead of driving the platter directly, the motor uses a belt to drive a sub-platter containing powerful magnets. Floating a tiny distance above this is an upper sub-platter containing opposing magnets and located by a bearing spindle.

Lower down, a 95-kg damped self-levelling pendulum hanging from the gyroscopic bearing forms the basis of an innovative selflevelling mechanism. The metal plates forming the counterweight are drilled and rotated to ensure that the platter is level with the Earth’s surface and tonearm. The result is practically impervious to impacts from boisterous Great Danes, grandchildren, or staff carelessly wielding a vacuum cleaner. And because it rests on gimballed supports, the whole structure can tilt. If you wanted to, you could have one installed on your yacht; apparently some have.

Supplied as standard is the Statement TT1 tangential tonearm, which by moving laterally

across the record groove ensures error-free tracking. If your vinyl is less than perfect, you’ll be pleased to know that the dual record clamp system has central and outer clamps that flatten minor warps and rigidly hold the vinyl in place.

To celebrate its 40th birthday, Clearaudio will be producing additional limited-edition products. Will we see something as special as the Statement? Suchy was coy, limiting his comments about what we can expect to, “It is going to definitely be a turntable.”