Turntables currently considered top of the range. Do you know what they are ?

This is just about $50K. I put this here, because I have this, except mine is the regular Innovation turntable and I have the Statement record weight, at $30K for everything, but I am thinking about adding the field upgrade kit to the Master Innovation for another ~$20K

Yeah the field-upgrade was a selling point when I bought a brand new Innovation Wood, exactly 12 years ago. In the end, I "upgraded" by buying a minty used Master Innovation (dealer floor model) for less than the upgrade price alone, and then sold my Innovation Wood on top of that.

One thing I’ve noticed, that’s seemingly not published nor explained by Clearaudio - my Master is a VERY early unit circa 2013, in fact its serial # is either # 2 or 3 (I forget which). More recent Master Innovations show a very beefed-up center column (holding the long bearing shaft), which should increase the table’s mass and rigidity. How is that reconciled with the field upgrade - or do all field upgrades assume the smaller-sized center column, since that’s what (I think) all Innovation Woods have?

In general - upgrade paths from high-end turntables companies - oof, very expensive.

What did you think of the difference between the Wood and the Master?

@dwette The the extra mass (especially in platter) definitely makes a positive difference - in both sonics, and the fact that I’ve experienced (sometimes) woofer flapping with the Compact and Wood but NOT the Master, despite ALL kinds of thrashing with loud music :) The Innovations (Compact / Wood / Master) share very similar sound signature - super clean midband, superb detail, pristine & smooth treble, clean bass - while remaining quite musical. The bearings are all dead quiet and smooooth. The Master just seems extra dynamic and powerful.

I also have SOTAs I like quite a bit - Nova V, Cosmos IV - they’re a tad warmer and "fuzzier" sounding than Clearaudios (sometimes this warmth is nice), very musical, and have GREAT isolation built in (especially Cosmos). I like them a lot. But the best sounding source I’ve ever had is Master / FR64S / Koetsu Blue Lace Diamond - decisively so. The FR64S can’t fit on a SOTA, only the lighter FR64fx, and these things do make a difference.

At times I’ve thought about selling the Master, since the SOTAs seem to get quite close, but at the end of the day - no, I just can’t! I’m certain I would regret it too much. The build is exceptional and it’s a gorgeous statement table. You know what, I just amped myself up again on how much I love it lol.

mulveling, why did you choose Clearaudio turntable ? Did you compare with other brands ? There is quite a choice at this level.

@inna
12 years ago I was looking for something different / better than my old SOTA Star and decided to buy new through my local dealer. Limited to what they had, the Innovation Compact that really clicked with me. I liked its fast, detailed, lively sound. And I love the looks of this series. So I decided to go one up to the Wood. After I bought that, the dealer got a Master for the floor, and one for his home. Then 5 years later I moved up to the "floor" Master. My dealer also had Transrotors and Pro-Jects (absolutely NOT) and in the past had VPIs. I don’t know what came over me to try VPIs a couple years back, but I did and it was fun for a minute but that ended quickly - back to SOTAs and the Master Innovation.

I forgot to mention how the VPIs sound versus Clearaudio and SOTA. Aries 3, Avenger Ref. They’re darker sounding. Especially with the 3D and Fatboy arms (I honestly liked the late make metal unipivots). There is a bass-reinforcement effect that can be fun, and some like. In my setup they were extremely reactive to feedback in audible bass frequencies, say 60 - 120 Hz. I think this is part of their sound. The CA Innovations can be reactive in the subsonic range (woofer flapping), due to the magnetic "float" bearing, but are SUPER clean and quiet through the audible specturm.

I think this is why VPIs pair well with Van den Huls, which have super clean bass, a lot of HF energy and firehose of details. With Colibris you can find yourself staving off sibilance, but Crimson & VPI was a really nice balance. I still ended up liking the metal uni better, but see why some like the Fatboys. The plain 3D arm, ugh I hated it.

I really haven’t had any issues with woofer flapping on my Innovation Wood with the Universal arms. I do have it sitting on a HRS R3X isolation platform, with the LF feet factory tuned specifically for the turntable. I have a pair of REL S/510 subs so I should notice if I had an issue. My Boulder phono-stage has a 10Hz low cut filter and I don’t notice any difference with it engaged.

@dwette It’s really dependent on your floor, rack, positioning relative to speakers, and how loud you play. I’ve pushed it on all accounts, except for the fact I don’t run subs, at least.

The rumble filters built into phono stages are generally pretty mild - they can help, but not enough in some cases. The KAB filter is much steeper and works well, though perhaps not 100% sonically transparent as advertised. Isolation platforms like from HRS and CMS seem most effective in midrange - my CMS ones didn’t help solve LF issues. LF energy issues can be quite hard to deal with.

Anyways, sounds like you’ve got it all squared away for your setup, and you should benefit from and enjoy your Master upgrade all the same! Great table. I’m happy you’ll get the latest version. I’d really like that for mine, but it would probably be hard to pull off without a lot of additional funds. Clearaudio has worked in improvements over the years, which I like better than the whole Mk 1, 2, 3 [SE] type schemes. 

I see. Are you also familiar with SME turntables ?

@inna  Nope. Their table are less common here in USA I guess, though the arms still get love. 

Think you'll be hard pressed to find 'philes who've had more than a few top tables, who are not also involved / staked in the industry in some fashion. 

The Minus-K is extremely impressive because it has such a ridiculously low resonant frequency - like 0.5 Hz or less in one of the directions. So it's truly effective at full-range isolation. Watch some videos of it in action; it's like magic. A really good, well-tuned spring suspension is a little higher in resonant frequency, but still very effective. Squishy feet / layers are much less effective at isolating lower bass frequencies, but still have some positive effect here. I think harder layers and platforms are really only effective at the midrange and up - no doubt, there is much good to be done here, but it's limited in range. Adding mass can help but it needs to be added in the right place in the right way, and with enough rigidity to suport it - yada yada. You could actually make things worse in some cases by carelessly adding mass (e.g. heavy turntable atop a cheap tower rack).

Anyways - yeah, the Minus-K "negative stiffness" tech looks super impressive and is on my bucket list to try some day :) 

I suppose you could say guys like me with an expensive deck (Master Innovation) and no Minus-K have the audiophile equivalent of a "kick me" sign on our backs lol. I have my Master on a CMS Maxxum rack which is no joke - but still, I think a Minus-K would be best. The SOTAs are simply life on "easy mode" by comparison. Especially the Csomos, which has extra mass in its subchassis. Just really super chill and immune to all the nonsense happening around it (caused by me!).

@dwette 

Wow, that's an awesome find. Seems like a ridiculous bargain in this context. I've spent this kind of money on just a couple of CMS platforms, and they surely don't help solve problems in bass frequencies - which (I imagine) the Minus-K should soak up like nothing, based on the physics. Like @tomic601 , I should've revisited more recently.

If you guys want to see something wild - check out these 2 video clips I made a couple years ago, with a VPI Aries 3, stylus in groove (at rest), and system on with volume set to "loud" listening level. This was my "energetic" problem room (small office).

https://imgur.com/a/HMASPUi

The 1st video shows extreme excitation at ~ 100-ish Hz from lightly tapping the shelf surface the TT sits on. It’s literally like a drum. Laptop speakers won’t reproduce this frequency; you need headphones or desktop speakers. And turn the video volume up. I could absolutely hear this frequency creep during playback, from feedback. It sounds remarkably like a ground hum, except that it rises as you increase volume. At a certain point, it can runaway (very bad, had to keep a finger on mute).

2nd video shows a greatly reduced effect, even as I slap the platform much harder! And it’s at the same system volume level. This is thanks to the metal 10.5i arm and HW-40 feet (squishy foam - with hockey pucks for spacers), versus the 3D arm and Classic Signature feet (hard - with Herbie’s giant fat dots for spacers). I should have made a video with the same feet, to show that much of the blame actually goes to the 3D arm. Fatboy arms were a similar story.

That’s a not-cheap CMS Sotto Voce rack and $2K Platinum shelf. Completely useless at this frequency! In the end, I think the rack’s architecture, table plinth design, and 3D tonearm are all to blame. And the Avenger Reference did nothing to help here. I thought its tripod plinth design might help, but it didn’t. Might have a video of that floating around somewhere.

Anyways, the Clearaudio Innovation compact had NO problems at 100Hz, but you had to watch subsonic feedback for woofer flapping (dangerous) - that’s from the float bearing IMO (again, the Master adds enough mass it’s less problematic). You can put this on a Townshend spring platform and it helps a lot! The problem with the VPIs, is their size makes it hard to fit onto a Townshend if you’re space constrained. I guess I should’ve tried the pods.

And the SOTA Cosmos, of course that does fine no problems :)
If I could re-do the rack choice I’d get an Adona with the cross-bracing. I think rigidity - in all directions - is a rack’s #1 job.