UPGRADES FOR THE WAND 14-4 TURNTABLE AND TONEARM
In the January 2024 Spin Doctor, I wrote about the innovative Wand 14-4 turntable from New Zealand.2 Almost immediately after I finished that piece, I was contacted by The Wand’s US distributor about checking out some upgrades that are available for the Wand 14-4.
The upgrades are mostly trickle-down developments from the 14-5 turntable, allowing 14-4 owners to get some of the benefits from that more upmarket model. The most significant is the EV Battery Power Supply, which, as the name suggests, takes the motor off the power grid using a battery housed in a separate enclosure styled to match the turntable’s design. Designer Simon Brown
chose an old-school lead-acid battery for the EV, so there are none of the fire concerns you can get with lithium-ion batteries.
When you make the upgrade, your old SMPS power supply that came with the 14-4 becomes the battery charger, taking about six hours to reach full capacity. That should be enough power for about eight hours of playback, but if you’re having an all-night party and you run out of juice, a switch lets you go back to wall power. I found the EV battery made a small but repeatable improvement in resolution of low-level detail, raising the overall performance of the 14-4 by a notch or two. This wasn’t as big a step up as you get when, eg, you upgrade a Linn LP12 to a Radikal DC, but it’s noticeable and worthwhile.
The second upgrade is a set of IsoAcoustics Gaia II footers, which replace The Wand’s proprietary isolation feet. How much of a difference these make will depend somewhat on the supporting surface under your 14-4, but in a typical American wood-frame house, the improvement can be substantial.
I have a theory that turntables developed outside the US—in Europe or in this case, New Zealand—are poorly equipped to deal with US home construction, where floors can bounce like a trampoline. A turntable with a bouncy suspension, or even one with no isolation, can be very sensitive to footfalls. I once installed a very expensive