The stunning Clearaudio Concept turntable is one of the best turntables you can buy, gaining the full five stars in our in-depth review. As my colleague Richard Black put it: "If the disc is rock, the Concept rocks. If jazz, it swings. If romantic, it smooches." And now it's gotten even better.
The new Concept Signature replaces the current Concept, and it's a significant upgrade. But the goal remains the same: to deliver a great entry point to the world of high-end hi-fi that delivers exceptional audio without being exceptionally difficult to set up or use.
What's new in the Clearaudio Concept Signature
One of the most significant changes of the Concept Signature is the new speed control technology, which the firm calls Tacho-Speed Control or TSC for short. TSC monitors the rotational speed of the platter and delivers real-time feedback to the control electronics, so when it detects influences such as temperature fluctuations, friction from the platter's bearing or decreasing belt tension it can adjust the system accordingly. It recalibrates itself every time you restart it, and you can perform a manual calibration too.
There are two resonance optimized body choices here, MDF or an upgrade made of solid wood layers that have been bonded under high pressure. The top layer is made from satin-finished plastic, again designed to reduce resonance, and there's an illuminated touch controller.
The platter is 30mm and sits atop a precision-machined aluminium sub-platter, and the bearing consists of a polished, tempered steel spindle in a sintered bronze bushing that runs on a Teflon thrust pad. And it's all driven by a resonance-damped DC motor with a polished flat drive belt. Its design has been taken from Clearaudio's considerably more expensive Reference Jubilee turntable, and it's completely decoupled from the main chassis via a version of Clearaudio's IMS (Innovative Motor Suspension).
While the Clearaudio Concept Signature is designed to deliver excellent performance out of the box, it's a modular design to enable easy customisation of tonearms and phono cartridges.
We're not the only people to have given previous versions of the Concept five stars: it's received rave reviews from Stereophile, What Hi-Fi? and many more. So it'll be fascinating to see what the audiophile experts make of this upgraded version.
The Clearaudio Concept Signature is available now with an RRP of £1,200 for the Concept Signature and £1,450 for the Concept Signature Wood. It's also available in a range of custom packages such as the Concept Signature with Verify Tonearm and Concept V2 moving magnet cartridge; that's £2,223 (we don't yet know US or Australian pricing). You can find out more and explore the possible combinations at clearaudio.de.
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