A Solution For My Vinyl Blues? It's a Clearaudio Solution.

A close up shot of the spindle and the acrylic platter.

Guess what I have spinning in my audio cave? I am going thru a period of vinyl revival of sorts, ever since I decided to get back on the the band wagon of the black arts. Since my Linn LP12 is still being restored, CMY Audio & Visual very thought fully supplied me with turn tables to keep my vinyl fever boiling.
The outboard motor unit and fly wheel for the drive belt.

I've always envied Micheal Fremer of Stereophile a lot, because he gets to play with all the best analog toys. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Clearaudio Concept turn table, so I was choke full of anticipation when John, boss of CMY allowed me to take home the Clearaudio Solution, Unify tone arm and Concerto V2 cartridge package for a spin. When I got home and opened the box, there's so many bits and pieces, just like a mechanical jigsaw puzzle, I did not know where to start. I slept over it and next day, fresh out of bed, made a second attempt to put together the turn table. All I needed was provided by Clearaudio, from the manuals, tools and a pair of white cotton gloves included.


The eagle has landed! The Unify Carbon tone arm and Concerto V2 cartridge.

It took me the better part of the day, more like 6 hours of constant work(stopping in between for lunch), before I heard the first tune. Assembling a complex turn table requires some mechanical familiarity, a bit of an inquisitive mind and in the case of the final assembly of the tone arm and cartridge alignment, nimble fingers too. Lastly, one needs to be very careful not to break anything too, especially the dangerously fragile looking tone arm cable and the proudly protruding cartridge cantilever and stylus tip!
The name says it all!

However, when the first tunes were played, there's a sign of relieve, and a feeling achievement, that it was all worth while. I now envy Mr Fremer no more, as from this experience, I've come to see the constant vinyl doodling as a labour of love. While I love the sound of the vinyl format, I just found it a bit too much of a hard work, just like reviewing speakers!

Did I find a Solution for my vinyl blues?

Stay tuned for the full report.