Clearaudio Concept
So, if you’re not familiar with the Clearaudio Concept turntable by now, the concept is essentially getting the most exceptional sound you can from your records at this price.
Simplicity is a big part of this package’s charm. Unlike some rival designs, which require patience, a steady hand and a passable grasp of mathematics to get working, the Concept is a ‘plug and play’ product straight from the box.
“We find it difficult not to be enamoured with the precision of the Concept’s timing. It’s incredibly fast, yet consistently in control”
Easy set-up
The company’s own moving-magnet Concept cartridge is fitted to the Verify Direct Wire Plus tonearm (though there is also a moving-coil alternative available), and Clearaudio sets everything, including the cartridge weight and bias, before the turntable leaves the factory.
You can fit a platter and a drive belt, can’t you? Of course you can – and then the Concept’s ready to play.
Before dropping a record into place, though, it’s worth taking a moment to admire the Concept’s clean design and chunkily substantial finish. Speed (33⅓, 45 and 78rpm) is controlled by a hefty rotary dial, and the whole thing operates with the sort of solidity more readily associated with outside water closets.
Being so largely redundant during set up, all that’s left for us to do is dig the Pixies’ Doolittle from its sleeve, delight in drawing the Concept’s magnetically poised tonearm – which has a magnetic bearing – over the edge of the record and let it drop gently into place.
Kim Deal chugs those first four bass notes and guitars yell as we anticipate being hit by the opening track Debaser like a fist to the thorax.
What’s immediately impressive is that it’s so incredibly taut, matching its blistering pace with extraordinary poise and agility; something like the Rudolf Nureyev of £1000 turntables.
Precise timing
It isn’t the weightiest of sounds in terms of low-end anchor, but the bass guitar feels anything but cumbersome, afforded the same light feet as its six-stringed cousins, and it’s certainly far away from substantially lacking in terms of depth.
As we tear through the opening tracks without pause for breath, we also find it difficult not to be enamoured with the precision of the Concept’s timing. It’s incredibly fast, yet consistently in control, never stumbling or tripping over its laces. Pixies’ frontman Black Francis’s rhythmic gasping in Tame, for example, has that combination of pace and restraint that builds anticipation to fever pitch ahead of the nal capricious chorus.
The intensity is relaxed a touch for tracks such as Wave Of Mutilation and Here Comes Your Man, so we have time to explore the ample space within the mix. There is air around the instruments – they have room enough to interact without ever colliding, allowing us either to focus on a singular part or let ourselves be immersed in the whole.
Evocative sounds
If analysis is a chief concern, it is further aided by the Concept’s transparency and level of detail. Having expended both sides of Doolittle, we dig out some Django Reinhardt.
Short of seeing the room and smelling the air for ourselves, the Clearaudio comes close to transporting us to 1930s France. It’s like the company’s proof of honesty being the best policy, refusing to sand off any edges that would dilute the character of the music, instead digging into the timbre of the instruments to let them tell their own story.
Reinhardt’s tale is often one of complex dark and shade, rife with slides and trills, and the Concept tracks this dynamic journey step for step.
The Concept is as clean, rhythmic, detailed and spacious as you’ll find for the money, not to mention engaging. A Conceptual masterpiece, you could say.
VERDICT This is a turntable of diverse talents, and one of the best around that you can find at this price