Clearaudio Innovation Wood Turntable (TAS 204)

Clearaudio’s Innovation Wood turntable combines some stunning new innovations along with others that have been applied to much of the Clearaudio line during the past four to five years, like ceramic magnetic bearing (CMB) technology and lightweight yet extremely dense materials to damp resonances and improve isolation. Some of these improvements have not only trickled down from Clearaudio’s breathtaking Statement turntable, but seemingly have trickled up from less ambitious models. I have always admired the engineering, machining, and German-precision of earlier generation Clearaudio ’tables, known for their clarity, accuracy, and resolution. My admiration increased dramatically after I reviewed the Clearaudio Ambient, with its lightweight but incredibly dense Panzerholz plinth. It was as if the bullet-proof wood had helped the sound become more harmonically fleshed out. For me, this was a welcome improvement to Clearaudio’s sonic signature, helping to make instruments and voices sound more natural and lifelike without a loss of clarity.

Next, I reviewed the modestly priced Clearaudio Performance with its ceramic magnetic bearing (CMB), which floated the platter using magnetic repulsion, resulting in increased transparency. The magnetic bearing seemingly lifted veils between the music and listener so that one could almost reach out and touch the orchestra on a fine recording like Prokofiev’s Symphonic Suite of Waltzes [Cisco Music]. Fortunately, CMB magnetic-repulsion technology was subsequently added to the Ambient and most other Clearaudio ’tables. Moving up in class, I used the Clearaudio Anniversary, developed in honor of Clearaudio’s 25th Jubilee anniversary, as my reference for quite some time. This ’table combined a CMB bearing, a synchronous motor housed in a massive stainless-steel case, and a large 70mm (2.8**) platter floating atop a Panzerholz plinth (sandwiched between two aluminum plates) in a star configuration optimized to reduce resonances and accommodate up to three tonearms. When the Anniversary was coupled with the Helius Omega Silver-Ruby tonearm and a Micro Benz Ebony H phono cartridge, the sound of the front end was very good with explosive dynamics without breakup, bass solidity and weight, see-through transparency, fast transients, an incredibly broad and deep soundstage, and stable imaging. I had not heard anything better for less, and it put several more expensive systems to shame.

The Innovation Wood, ostensibly a replacement for the Anniversary, raises the bar still higher on what a $10,000 ’table can do, outdistancing the fine Anniversary in several areas, most notably in pitch stability. Its speed accuracy reminds me of my dearly departed classic Technics SP-10 MkII direct-drive ’table, but without the motor noise. Using the same Helius/Benz combination, I immediately noted the absolute pitch stability on recordings of solo instruments, like Johanna Martzy’s violin on J.S. Bach’s BWV 1001, BWV 1006 [Coup d’Archet] or Arthur Rubinstein’s piano on Chopin’s Nocturnes [RCA] and on vocals ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to James Taylor. For me, even a slight pitch waver on a sustained note caused by minute speed variations destroys the illusion of a live performance. If you are as sensitive to this as I am, the Innovation Wood will be a revelation, and it does not require an additional external speed controller. Save for the direct drive SP-10 MkII, the speed stability of the Innovation Wood surpasses all the ’tables I’ve had in house, even those that I’ve married with the fine VPI SDS, as well as the Sota Star with its speed controller, and the excellent SME 20/12.

A new motor, massive sub-platter, CMB, and optional peripheral ring all contribute to the Innovation Wood’s remarkable speed accuracy. The new high-torque, decoupled DC motor with “real time” optical speed control uses an infrared sensor, a high-precision reflection scale, and a speed circuit that result in less cogging, less variation due to AC fluctuations, less vibration, and more speed stability than the Anniversary’s precision AC synchronous motor. This is one turntable that gets up to speed in a hurry and offers convenient electronic speed change (331/3, 45, 78rpm) at the push of a button. The Innovation Wood also uses a massive, dynamically balanced, stainless sub-platter, derived from the Statement, which when combined with the optional Outer Limit peripheral ring, produces a very nice flywheel effect.

The Innovation Wood also offers other notable advancements over the Anniversary. It sports two stacked yet decoupled Panzerholz plinths, rather than the Anniversary’s one, with more damping in the sandwich construction, superb leveling locking feet, and a new platter machined from POM instead of acrylic. It accommodates two, rather than the Anniversary’s three, tonearms and provides an excellent platform for both linear tracking and pivoted tonearms.