I am about to pull trigger on this beautiful Clearaudio Innovation Compact Wood table with Clearaudio Tracer Arm, and Clearaudio Charisma MM cartridge. so, if there are any concerns or better/ different ideas - now would be a great time. This will replace myClearaudio Concept/ Satisfy Kardan / Virtuoso cart which I have very much enjoyed the last three years.
I just traded in my Innovation, I just could not warm up to that table. Are you able to do an in home audition by chance?
I've had an Innovation Compact Wood with the TT-3 straight line arm for many years. It has been a great table for me. Using the Outer Limit ring I never have to worry about warped records.
Cheers to that!! Why switch if you had a great experience with CA already. Congrats and enjoy! Years ago, I got to spend a few days with my buddies Master Innovation with the magnetic drive. That thing was off the chain! He keeps it as his back up to an Airforce One TT now. Not in my stratosphere but glad to have a friend with stuff like that!! You only live once!
I have the Charisma cartridge and can say that it is quite good but if you can get a significant discount by having that cartridge not be part of the deal there are a number of MC options that cost less than the Charisma that would be better. I traded off my higher end Clearaudio deck and ran the Charisma on a CA made Marantz deck with the Satisfy carbon arm, I then took the Charisma off that deck and put an Audio Techinca OC9XSL MC on it, when I did this I only undid the cartridge bolts and not the center bolt on the arm and since I have a Mint protractor for it I checked the alignment and it was perfect. The needle hit in the exact same spot as the Charisma so I didn't have to adjust alignment. Main point is that the $750 OC9 is equal (possibly better) to the Charisma, the second point is that all Clearaudio MM carts are based on hand picked Audio Technica parts. The Charisma is no slouch by any means but my experience is that this sub 1k cart is it's equal and I would expect others like the ART9, Hana ML etc. to be a better experience for the money.
I used 3 different arms : CA TT-3, SME V and an SME 312s and 3 cartridges: Koetsu Urushi vermillion, Dyna 17D3 and a Sumiko Celebration (original re-tipped by Soundsmith). I also replaced the wall wart with ab SBooster 24V power supply as well as used a periphery ring. It always seemed very sterile and dry to me. It also had a hard time handling fairly high volumes with any of the arms, but it was worst with the TT-3. I ended up buying a second Delphi and traded my Innovation in for a Graham Phantom Elite arm and Etsuro Brodeaux cartridge.
You really used outstanding " ingredients" and it is very sad you did not like the result. I have decided to stay with MM which in car terms is a bit more like a "muscle car" rather than a refined exotic and I also decided against any of the horizontal arms like the TT3 - simply don't know enough about them. However, i have read all the German tests and they really liked this TT with a MC cart. As I said, I want to stay with MM and have also considered the Audionote IQIII which i have on my purely analog system in Washington DC ( Audionote TT3 table). Really love that cart in that environment but was wondering if its outstanding performance there was also dependent on being in a total Audionote environment - TT. Amplifier - Speakers.
I currently run an Innovation with a TT3/Charisma V2, a 12" Universal with a Koetsu Azule. I'm in heaven. Nothing sterile about it. I do use a tube phono, Ypsilon VPS, and the battery power supply. I also use the ring and the innovation weight with the universal, and a smaller weight with the TT3. I used to run an ICW with a 9inch universal. It blew away my VPI Classic 3 with vps, and my original Aries before it. You will be very pleased with your purchase. If you are willing to go used pm me, I might make your day. I would have no qualms about your purchase, it is a beautiful and amazing sounding table. Good luck.
What do you mean it couldn't handle high volumes? What isolation platform/furniture did you use? The TT3 seems to really only like CA carts given their horizontal and vertical compliance specs, what cart did you use here? TA cable? On the V, how did you adjust azimuth? Also what arm ran the Koetsu, never heard a Koetsu, let alone Urishi described as cold, what type of music is your jam?
Thank you for making me feel better. I am using a EAR 834P phono stage which also is a tube phono and I do believe that it provides for a nice and warm sound. I will keep my fingers crossed that it will all work out just fine. I am not sure why, but I also think that CA components work best with other CA components. I truly like my current CA setup and I hope this will be a nice step up.
Before I got my AN TT-2, I was running a Clearaudio Performance DC -> Tracer -> IQ3 and was very pleased with the results.
To add a (semi) relevant data point, I've been using and loving my Clearaudio Ovation (one notch down from the Innovation, but similar tables) with a Tracer arm for a few years. I definitely wouldn't call the Clearaudio sterile at all, it just reproduces what you feed it. With the Tracer + a good cart (I'm using an Aidas Gold) + a good phono amp (I have a Zestos) it sounds detailed, but full, satisfying, and groovy, pun intended.
I just stumbled on this thread. I own the Clearaudio Innovation Compact, Tracer tonearm, and the Maestro V2 cartridge. About to swap that out for the Charisma V2.1. I've also run Dynavector, and Koetsu cartridges on the table. One other thing I have is the new power supply they came out with this year. I love the table. It does not sound steril nor is not colored. It's just very good at doing its job. I absolutely love the table. I've been using it for 4 years now. It produces rich, texture, detailed, nuanced sound. What you feed it will make all the difference. I play records that can make the listener feel that the artist is in the room with them. It's an outstanding piece of equipment. My biggest recommendation is having a rock solid rack for it. I built my own.
I haven't posted any on this site. I certainly can. It turned out great. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder mind you haha. I kind of made/invented my own cantilever design. I suspended the rack off the foundation wall in my apartment. I used double expansion anchors into the wall. It could have easily supported 1000 pounds of weight. It then had no contact with the floor and was no longer subject to footfall issues. I used 316 stainless steel as the frame. I used thick walnut slabs for the shelves. I decoupled the shelves from the frame with Herbies grungebusters. I cut up zebrawood slats to cover the back and hide the cables. Anyways, I'll dig up my install photos. I did Progress pictures along the way. I've since moved and had to attach feet to the bottom of it but it still works fantastic.
looks like a good table but a $13,000 table with a moving magnet cartridge is an application i do not understand.
Wow, that sounds very cool. They don't host pictures here so you have to upload them someplace else like imgur.com and then post the links to the pictures here.
It was a lot of work and a lot of fun to design and make. I'll figure out the whole host image thing and post the link. I just found my progress photos. So glad that I took a picture of the wall before I started the project! I forgot that at the time, my friend let me barrow his Shindo gear. That equipment made everything look extra awesome I also have pics of it with my much more subdued LM amp
I used to feel this way as well. But when I tried the Maestro V2, i discovered that it was capable of reproducing incredible tonal textures and was very musical. Clearly it was made to mate with the clearaudio arm. I was mistaken to write it off for so long based on the fact that it was mm and not a mc. I liked it so much that I decided the Charisma was worth purchasing. Also I got excellent trade in on the Maestro. It's not the detail freak that my Te Kaitura Rua was, nor is it as fleshed out as my Koetsu, but it tracks better on some of my rock albums, and can easily make incredibly gorgeous musical playback. When a cartridge can reproduce music that moves you to tears, then you stop remembering or caring if it's magnets moving or coils moving that made you feel that way. It's just music at that point.
No image, but if I right click on the IMG tag and open in a new tab, I can see the page below ... I use imgur and haven't used flickr, so not sure what you are doing wrong ...
Yes, I can get to the page and view the picture now, but you seem to be posting a link to the web page and not the image file.
