Clearaudio Innovation Wood
If building a great turntable is all about top-quality design and mechanical excellence, Clearaudio’s Innovation Wood is off to a winning start.
This is an astonishingly well-built turntable that combines rugged build with exceptional quality of fit and finish. And we do mean exceptional. Even by the standards of stratospherically priced kit, this package is something special.
The way the metal spindle-piece fits perfectly into the hole in the elegant acrylic platter, sinking into place as if damped, illustrates the precision with which this turntable has been machined.
As befits a product called Innovation, there are plenty of clever ideas in the design, from a ceramic magnetic main bearing that minimises friction and noise, to a high-quality DC motor and an electronic speed governor that switches from 33⅓ to 45 and 78rpm at the push of a backlit button.
Solid support is critical
As is typical with Clearaudio, the £8330 Innovation Wood has no suspension, so careful positioning is a must if you’re to extract the best performance from this player. That means using a rigid, low-resonance support as far from the speakers as possible.
That said, this deck has an extremely well damped structure, helped by the combination of aluminium and Panzerholz wood used in its chassis.
If anything, Clearaudio’s new pivoted tonearm, the Universal, feels even better put together than the Innovation. As suggested by its name, it’s meant for use with a wide range of decks and cartridges.
The version of the arm under test has provision for fine-tuning the vertical tracking angle while playing a record. The improvement in sonic performance is worth every penny of the £330 it adds to the standard Universal’s £4190 price.
Completing the package is Clearaudio’s £4480 high-end cartridge, the ceramic-coated Davinci V2.
Global recognition
This trio is world-class. There’s a real feeling that the three components are digging up every tiny bit of information from the record groove.
All this content is skilfully organised and delivered with breathtaking composure. There’s never a sense that the deck is having to work hard, even when something as demanding as Orff’s
Carmina Burana really kicks off with its massive dynamic swings and massed instrumentation. There’s no doubting the control and composure here, but this is also a record player that knows how to have fun.
Timing and transparency
Timing is good too – good enough for Bob Marley’s Catch A Fire set to work a treat. Vocals are nuanced and natural, overall transparency is top-class, and there’s a feeling of precision engineering that few rivals we’ve used can match.
This is a lot of money to spend on a record player. But, if you really want to hear what’s tucked away in those vinyl grooves, this package brings it all out as well as anything we’ve heard.