clearaudio
Preamplifiers
Turntable Tonearms
Turntables
Best Known For
Turntables
/
Used Products
88
 Available
Average Price
$5,001-$10,000
Brand Popularity
65
 of 900+
Products Listed
31
Review Count
71
Founding Year
1978
Headquarters
Germany
clearaudio
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What's unique about the brand

Clearaudio stands out for its magnetic levitation technology in turntables and tonearms, which reduces friction and wear while enhancing tonal accuracy. The brand caters to both novices and audiophiles with features like their Optical Speed Control system that uses infrared sensors to maintain precise speed, and pre-adjusted parameters for easy setup.

What reviewers are saying

We read all the reviews. Here's what reviewers feel most strongly about:

  • Clearaudio turntables are often sold as complete packages, including a pre-mounted and aligned tonearm and cartridge, allowing for a simplified, plug-and-play setup experience.
  • The brand utilizes Panzerholz, a dense, resonance-damping "bulletproof" wood, often sandwiched with aluminum in their plinth construction, contributing to a unique sonic signature.
  • Clearaudio is an early adopter of ceramic magnetic bearings (CMB), implementing them to reduce friction and noise in their turntables for improved speed stability and transparency.
  • They offer various tonearm options, with carbon fiber variants to reduce resonance and improve performance, including innovative, often magnetic, anti-skating designs.

Our favorite reviewer quotes:

  • "The magnetic bearing brings a level of transparency and quietness to vinyl that I did not know was possible." (https://www.dagogo.com/clearaudio-innovation-wood-turntable-review)
  • "With the Universal in my system, the sense of PRaT and the wonderful flow of the music was simply beyond anything I have ever heard. The micro-dynamics were also simply the best I have ever heard." (https://www.dagogo.com/clearaudio-universal-radial-tonearm-review)
  • "As I dropped the needle, dude, this isn't the Marvin Gaye I remember. His voice had layers of texture. His voice had a soul and emotion to it that I hadn't experienced before." (https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/03/31/clearaudio-innovation-basic-turntable-review)
  • "In general, vinyl players of this quality offer something very profoundly magical in the naturalness and three-dimensionality of the soundstage. However, it is the soundstage that attracts the most attention, with the sound being a cohesive whole and yet consisting of individual instruments, or at least groups of instruments, which can be discerned perfectly." (https://www.musiikkiakorville.fi/in-english/clearaudio-master-innovation-breathtaking-german-engineering)
  • "The Clearaudio Innovation Wood is a brilliant achievement and sets new price/performance standards in several areas. Its pitch stability is stunning, and when mated to a first-rate arm like the Helius Omega Silver-Ruby and the surprisingly good Benz Ebony H cartridge, its soundstaging approaches reference quality." (https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/clearaudio-innovation-wood-turntable-tas-204)
  • "Of all the gear I have listened to, and the components auditioned, this was the closest anything had come to recreating the sound of someone actually singing in front of me. Jeff Tweedy seemed to be standing in front of me, as the nuances of the recording came to life." (https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/vinyl/turntables/clearaudio-concept-turntables)
Want to report a correction? Please contact us. We'd love to hear from you. Note that much of the data, recommendations, and summaries on ExtremeHiFi are researched after thousands of hours of loving labor. We archive our site's data and its pages on Archive.org and monitor for those repurposing the data. We also fingerprint data to know when text and numbers came from us.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

From Julian's interview with
.

Products

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Check Amazon
Amazon logo

Lineup comparison

We think it's helpful to understand how their products compare. To learn more about each, scroll to the section above to click through to individual product pages.

Concept

  • Positioning: The entry-level turntable, designed to offer high-end features at an affordable price.
  • Description: Features a friction-free magnetic bearing tonearm for low distortion. Unlike the more advanced models like the Performance DC, it offers a simpler setup with a focus on plug-and-play simplicity, making it ideal for small rooms and those new to high-fidelity audio systems.

Performance DC

  • Positioning: Positioned as a mid-range model, offering a step up in performance and features from the Concept.
  • Description: Known for its excellent tracking and speed accuracy, includes a ceramic magnetic bearing for enhanced resonance control. Compared to the Concept, it offers a more robust build, with options for both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges.

Master Jubilee

  • Positioning: A high-end model, offering advanced features and a luxurious design.
  • Description: Features a unique motor suspension system and a heavy-duty chassis for exceptional resonance control. It offers more advanced motor control and the ability to mount a second tonearm, setting it apart from the Ovation.

Master Innovation

  • Positioning: A premium model, designed for ultimate performance and flexibility.
  • Description: Distinguished by its dual-platter system and magnetic decoupling, providing excellent speed stability. It allows for up to three tonearms, offering more versatility than the Master Jubilee.

Statement

  • Positioning: Clearaudio's flagship model, representing the pinnacle of their turntable technology.
  • Description: A masterpiece of engineering, featuring a massive 350 kg build and advanced optical speed control. It offers groundbreaking sound reproduction, far exceeding the capabilities of the Master Innovation, and is designed for the most discerning audiophiles who demand the ultimate in audio performance.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer

Search hifi products

Explore our database of 10,000+ new and 25,000+ used hifi products.

Similar

Turntables

brands

Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$5,001-$10,000
Used Products
10
 Available
Brand Popularity
309
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

AMG (Analog Manufaktur Germany) is distinguished by their turntables' dual-pivot tonearm bearing system, derived from helicopter rotor technology, which eliminates bearing chatter in their flagship Viella model. Their products, including the Giro turntable known for its exceptionally low noise floor, combine precision German engineering with unique features like cherry wood sub-chassis for enhanced damping, making them a favorite among serious audiophiles.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$5,001-$10,000
Used Products
38
 Available
Brand Popularity
82
 of 900+
Headquarters
Italy

About the brand

Gold Note is an Italian hifi brand that manufactures all components in-house, with their DS-10 DAC offering 192 setup options to adapt to different music genres and listener preferences. Their products, including the IS-10 and IS-1000 integrated amplifiers, combine multiple functions like streaming, DAC, and phono stages in single units, delivering a rich, tube-like sound signature.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

The design of our turntables in the mid and high range relies on a very unique geometry that’s mathematically defined as the catenary curve, a shape that is found across nature (from spider webs to rope statistics) and firstly described by Galileo Galilei in the 17th century. The curve was first leveraged to design load-bearing structures such as arches and bridges since it offers the best rigidity/mass ratio. For turntables, it's an optimal as it provides really high rigidity with minimal mass giving the turntable great stability and resilience while minimising the amount of mass that could store potential energy (such as vibration). As a side effect, it creates a beautiful shape that elevates the design — this is a very Italian approach, developing creative solutions that serve boh performance and aesthetics. 

Another key feature is the electric control of the motor leveraging a built-in power conditioning stage with a triple AC-DC-AC conversion to feed the motor with ultra-clean current, which is crucial as our turntables feature synchronous motors (calibrated on the AC).

Lastly, the design of the bearing/spindle is developed to achieve the strictest of tolerance with higher quality materials, and you won’t find similar designs on any turntables in the same price range since it’s extremely expensive to manufacture — it’s a core feature of our turntables that enables superior sound quality even though it’s completely hidden from the eye.  

What's your approach to customer support?

We have a dedicated inbox for customer support [email protected] that is monitored 24/7 and a response time of around 24h. Customer should always contact Gold Note directly, our customer support will then manage their enquiry appropriately and put them in touch with the relevant contacts (such as our local distributor) if needed. 

We used to rely primarily on our local partners in the past to provide quick support, however we have recently moved to a more centralised approach since we wish to establish a direct contact with our customers and ensure they get all the information directly from the source. 

Today we can in fact guarantee fast response time and - since we are the manufacturer - more precise information to determine whether the product needs a simple firmware update, a hardware fix or a replacement.

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

Since we manufacture all sorts of sources — from turntable to streamers — we usually to suggest a mix of genres and it’s really hard to narrow it down to just three tracks:

For classical, we love "Dance of the Tumblers" from the Snow Maiden by the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue (Reference Recordings,1998).

For electronic, our go to is "The Expert" by Yello (Polydor, 2021).

For jazz and vocals, it’s hard to pick between Cassandra Wilson’s "Strange Fruit" (Blue Note, 1995) and "Blues in My Heart” by Fiona Boyes (Reference Recordings, 2020).

What other products pair best with yours?

As a system manufacturer, we design our products to be part of a Gold Note system and therefore that’s the highest degree of synergy you can reach. The idea of designing full systems is generally frowned upon as the main objection inevitably is: if you design all sorts of products, how can you beat a specialist that only makes amplifiers?

The answer is somewhat counterintuitive and I believe it’s not fully understood by the public yet so I’ll briefly summarise it here — engineering audio systems is fundamentally to design ways to manage signals, whether digital or analogue. The knowledge compounds by researching all areas of signal transmission and amplification, and can then be used to improve on designing electronics, loudspeakers or tonearms. 

For example: researching and designing a cable leads to gaining insights that can then be deployed when designing PCBs; R&D on phono stages where dealing with low voltage signals and ultra-low noise components will inform the design of amplifiers. This positive loop goes on affecting all areas and increasing the knowhow of the team, leading to better products.

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$10,001-$20,000
Used Products
0
 Available
Brand Popularity
517
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

TW Acustic is renowned for its meticulous engineering, particularly in their turntables which feature unique materials like jet-black compound plinths and copper-dust-enriched polyoxymethylene, developed over years of research. Their turntables use proprietary composite platters filled with special gel and capped with copper plates, while their power supplies are often battery-based to minimize interference from the power grid.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$2,501-$5,000
Used Products
2
 Available
Brand Popularity
513
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

Perpetuum Ebner is known for their complex automatic mechanisms and unique features like VTA adjustment that lets users dial in the number of records on a stack to adjust stylus angle. Their turntables feature meticulous build quality with almost no brittle plastic parts, and they offer both belt-driven models with suspended subchassis and their flagship direct-drive PE 7070 MKII.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$2,501-$5,000
Used Products
69
 Available
Brand Popularity
70
 of 900+
Headquarters
Germany

About the brand

Thorens is renowned for pioneering the suspended subchassis turntable design in 1966 with their TD 150 model, which provides superior vibration isolation and has become a standard in turntable engineering. Their latest innovation is seen in the New Reference turntable, which features an active vibration isolation system developed with Seismion that uses piezoelectric sensors and electronic control, along with a German-made 3-phase synchronous motor driven by three linear power amplifiers.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$10,001-$20,000
Used Products
1
 Available
Brand Popularity
292
 of 900+
Headquarters
Poland

About the brand

J.Sikora stands out for being the only hifi brand to use Kevlar in their tonearm tubes, combining this unique material choice with a unipivot bearing design for optimal sound performance. Their tonearms feature a distinctive VTA adjustment mechanism modeled after a photographic lens, allowing precise adjustments during playback, while incorporating a mix of aluminum, bronze, and brass to enhance sound quality.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page

Questions? Ask their dealers.

All Dealers