Around a decade ago now, we dubbed the Clearaudio Concept the best turntable over £800 during our What Hi-Fi? Awards 2014 and 2015, dubbing it an easy-to-use, nicely made player that delivered sonic agility and poise in spades. We loved it, and we've been hoping for a sequel ever since.
That sequel, or "upgrade" as Clearaudio is calling it, has finally arrived in the shape of the Concept Signature turntable, a new player which the brand claims offers "an entry point into high-end hi-fi in which accessibility and ease-of-use are as paramount as sonic performance". The new spinner is billed as the complete "package", if you buy the whole deck together with a tonearm, cartridge and technical parameters pre-set to get you plugged in and playing within minutes out of the box.
The turntable's plinth is made of a resonance-optimised MDF body; alternatively you can upgrade this to solid wood layers bonded under high pressure. The unit's top layer is made from a high-tech plastic material designed specially to minimise resonances and improve audio reproduction.
The Concept Signature's speed stability is given plenty of consideration. Clearaudio employs its new ‘Tacho-Speed-Control’ (TSC) technology which "constantly monitors the platter’s rotational speed and provides real-time feedback to the control electronics". This is to ensure the deck retains a consistent speed regardless of any degradations in the belt tension, friction between the platter and bearing, or even temperature. This calibration can be done automatically and manually too.
The Signature's 30mm main platter is mounted on top of a high-density aluminium sub-platter, while the bearing constitutes a tempered steel spindle in a sintered bronze bushing.
That platter is driven by a resonance-damped DC motor in this belt drive design. The motor, incidentally, is decoupled from the main chassis via a more modest version of Clearaudio’s "Innovative Motor Suspension’" tech seen in its higher-end Reference Jubilee model, while a stable external power supply unit delivers power to the whole ensemble.
The Concept Signature has been created to be highly flexible, offering customers a broad spectrum of combinations from Clearaudio’s range of tonearms and cartridges, so that you can build your perfect vinyl package to your liking. You can, if you want to, simply buy the turntable by itself, or purchase a Signature package with a choice of tonearm and cartridge supplied by Clearaudio.
The Clearaudio Concept Signature turntable is available now in the UK at the following prices:
- Turntable only (no tonearm or cartridge): £1200
- Concept Signature Wood finish: £1450
- Example Concept Signature package (Verify tonearm and Concept V2 MM cartridge): £2223
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