US audio magazine The Absolute Sound’s annual Editors’ Choice Awards highlight a selection of the world’s best-sounding hi-fi. German analogue pioneers Clearaudio feature strongly again in 2024, with some long-standing favourites and some newly upgraded classics.
Turntables: six of the best
Clearaudio’s entry-level, plug-and-play Concept deck must surely be a contender for ‘most-awarded turntable ever’, as well as being a runaway best-seller for more than a decade. This year, two versions of the Concept are Editors’ Choice Award-winners – and that’s before the recent ‘Signature’ upgrade of the whole series!
The Concept Black, partnered here with the Satisfy tonearm, is “made like a fine mechanical Swiss watch” and “is a model for how a mid-priced, belt-drive turntable should look and perform”, with “overall musicality, image focus, transient authenticity and dynamic conviction.”
Edging up a step, the Concept AIR Active “redefines what is means to be an affordable and accessible high-performance turntable in the here and now.” As well as tonearm and cartridge (in this case, the Satisfy carbon fibre tonearm and Concept MC), this package includes “a top-notch built-in phonostage and headphone output with volume control”. The result is “a rarity in the high-end – a triumph of performance, pricing and packaging”.
Moving up form entry-level to the mid-range, the Performance DC Wood AIR, here partnered with Clearaudio’sTracer tonearm, delivers a “realistic and compelling presentation” that “benefits any type of music, making [this turntable] an excellent choice for multi-genre vinyl lovers who have all-over-the-map musical tastes.”
The latest iteration of Clearaudio’s Ovation turntable builds on the Concept’s model by “bundling together even more sophisticated turntables, arms and cartridges into fine-sounding but relatively hassle-free combinations”. Partnered with the Tracer carbon-fibre tonearm and Talisman v2.1 Gold cartridge, this “may be the most ambitious such package yet”.
As its name suggests, the dual-plinthed Innovation Wood (reviewed here with the 24V Professional Powersupply) “combines some stunning innovations” and features “superb speed accuracy”. Reviewer JH “has not heard any belt-driven ‘table best the Innovation Wood in this critical area, with solo instruments and voices delivering “rock-solid pitch stability”.
At the top of the Innovation series, the Master Innovation, equipped with the low-mass, near-vestigial, carbon fibre, liner tracking TT-1M1 tonearm, is “a brilliant Peter Suchy design” and one of reviewer Jonathan Valin’s references. This “engineering masterpiece” was also The Absolute Sound’s 2019 Turntable of the Year.
Another six winners: phono cartridges
From entry-level to top-of-range, the full breadth of Clearaudio’s phono cartridge range is once again recognised in the 2024 Awards.
The Maestro v2 Ebony, as its name might suggest, “brings symphonic recordings to life, unifying each orchestral section into the greater whole” and is “as musical as they come”. Co-winner of The Absolute Sound’s 2013 Phono Cartridge of the Year Award, the Maestro “should be required listening for moving-magnet and moving-coil fans alike”.
The Charisma v2.1, described by Clearaudio as company founder Peter Suchy’s ‘moving-magnet masterpiece’, “retrieves images like they’re being monitored by LoJack”. Tracking is “unshakeable and effortless”, allowing superb transients, and delivering “a full palette of tonal color vibrancy and timbral complexity, with classic midrange heft and bloom, electrifying dynamics, and top-end sweetness”.
The Talisman v2.1 “is one beautiful-sounding pickup, with a gorgeous midrange and bottom end, solid in all senses of the word, superb definition and clarity, and lots of heft and weight. Yet it’s also dynamic as all get-out, with terrific rhythmic spring and timing.”
The Concerto v2 is “the entry-level cartridge in Clearaudio’s “super-class” of moving coils, and super it is, with “superb focus, resolution, transient quickness, and top-end extension”.
The equally musically-named and “reference calibre” Stradivari v2.1 was given a ‘Golden Mean’ by reviewers in a recent group test, “because it ideally mediates warmth and detail, control and relaxation, liveliness and listenability, at virtually no sacrifice in tonal neutrality”.
Right at the top end and is Clearaudio’s “astoundingly realistic” flagship, the Goldfinger Statement V2.1, with its “wonderful distinction of tone colours and performance details.” On Clearaudio’s “famously vast, three-dimensional soundstage” the musicians and their instruments, their touch and tone “are reproduced so faithfully and completely that you can almost see them playing there in front of you.”
Precise and pristine: hi-fi accessories
Anyone with a high-performance system will be keen to keep their kit and their vinyl in spot-on condition, and two further Clearaudio Award-winners are designed to do just that.
The Stroboscope Test Record and Speed Light “are great tools for the vinyl junkie”, designed to accurately measure turntable speed while doubling as a cartridge break-in device, while the Double Matrix Professional Sonic is “a highest-quality record cleaner” featuring ultrasonic scrubbing and simultaneous cleaning of both sides of a record.
Find out more about all 14 Award-winners at www.clearaudio.de/en, and track down your nearest dealer via UK distributor www.soundfowndations.co.uk
Discover the complete list of Editors’ Choice Award winners in the March 2024 issue of The Absolute Sound.
David Denyer PR | The hi-fi specialist 