Belt-driven turntable with electronic speed control and tonearm
Made by: Clearaudio Electronic GmbH, Germany
Supplied by: Sound Fowndations, UK
Telephone: 0118 981 4238
Web: www.clearaudio.de; www.soundfowndations.co.uk
Prices: £3800 (Virtuoso v2), £4295 (MC Essence Aluminium)

TURNTABLE

Clearaudio
Performance DC/TT5
Clearaudio’s Performance deck, now sporting a DC motor, has evolved almost beyond
recognition over the last decade. Will the new linear-tracking TT5 arm propel it further?
Review: Nick Tate Lab: Paul MillerT

he German turntable giant
Clearaudio offers a dazzling varietyof decks, tonearms and cartridges
to suit almost every budget fromthe £995 Concept [HFN Jul ’10] to the£113,000 Statement v2 [HFN Apr ’16]. The
Performance DC reviewed here is the latest
in a long line of ‘affordable audiophile’ vinyl
spinners from this busy brand, where it’s
attempting to offer high-end quality, styleand functionality at a mid-market price.
The standard package comprises thePerformance DC, Clarify ‘magnetic bearing’
tonearm [HFN Feb ’13] and Virtuoso
v2 MM cartridge, price £2950 – but asreviewed here we have the elegant new
TT5 tangential-tracking tonearm, bumping
the cost up to £3800 (or £4295 with
the MC Essence moving-coil seen in ourphotographs). The TT5 is also available
separately for £1995.

less likely to go ‘out of tune’ periodically.
It’s also wonderfully compact, which will bewelcomed by many, though you will needto place it on a well isolated support.

FLOATING PLATTER
Its aluminium and highly compressedwood fibre sandwich plinth is designed
to minimise resonance, and set into thisis a DC motor similar to that used in
Clearaudio’s higher end decks. A short,flat profile belt drives the inner platter andthis delivers a fast, smooth start-up to the
40mm-thick black Polyoxymethylene (POM)
platter. This feels heavy but ‘dead’ when
you tap it – just as it should.
The platter sits on Clearaudio’s patented
ceramic magnetic bearing (CMB) that
supports a good deal of the load if notentirely ‘floating’ the rotating mass. The

classic german styling
The original Performance turntable whichcame out in 2007 was quite a different
beast with its Staron (artificial stone) topand bottom plinth plates and AC motor. AnSE version arrived in 2011 which brought
aluminium end plates, before this current
version was launched with its DC motorand associated electronics.
The Performance DC deck uses tried andtested Clearaudio parts with the emphasis
on quality and consistency. Exquisitely put
together, it reminds me stylistically of aclassic Dieter Rams/Braun design of thelate 1960s. It’s a non-suspended subchassis
design, so there are no springs or othermeans of isolation other than that affordedby the plinth and feet.
The upside is that it’s far less fiddly thanrival decks with sprung suspensions and is
RIGHT: Clearaudio’s three-speed DC motor ismounted into the alloy/wood sandwich plinth,
driving a sub-platter via a flat belt. The TT5 arm
has a spirit level to confirm precise levelling

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result is ultra-low friction, vanishingly
low wear and almost no noise [see PM’sLab Report, p45]. The deck feels swish touse – there are no noises from the belt
on start-up, and once the deck gets up
to speed it runs reliably and consistently.
There’s a choice of three electronicallyswitched speeds, 33.3, 45 and 78rpm, anda small external ‘wall wart’ power supply isincluded with the deck.
The TT5 is the most affordable ofClearaudio’s parallel-tracking tonearms
and is essentially a simplified, morevalue-oriented version of the high-end
TT1, allowing the company to extend
this technology to a mid-price turntable.
Conventional pivoted arms necessarily
describe an arc across the LP while lineartrackers move in the same manner as thecutter used in the vinyl disc’s production.So properly set up, a linear-tracker will
eliminate tracking error and distortion.
The TT5 is an elegant design, thecartridge carrier assembly running
tangentially across the LP surface via aglass collar on two small metal rollers. As
the stylus tracks the groove it is pulled
inwards towards the record centre,
but in order for it to run smoothly andunimpeded, the assembly
needs to be perfectlyaligned horizontally –hence the arm’s range ofadjustments and integral
spirit level.
Tracking force
adjustment is provided
by the simple expedientof moving a weight on the opposite
end of the carrier to the cartridge, andsecuring it with a grub screw. Operating
it is straightforward but I would strongly
recommend investing in the optional
Swing Base (£390) that lets you rotate thewhole arm assembly out of the way whenchanging records. If not, you’re forced to
guide the disc very gently between thedeck’s central spindle and the cartridge –which isn’t something for the faint-hearted.

A MASTERLY PERFORMANCEThe sound of this turntable package
is quite distinct – clean and crisp. The
Performance DC/TT5sounds confident andsmooth, as it gets onwith playing the music in
an undramatic, matterof-fact way. Indeed, you
could go so far as to say it
is relatively characterless,which is what many will
want from a good record player. Having
previously auditioned the deck with a
Clarify pivoted tonearm, it’s evidently a key
attribute of the turntable but the TT5 takes
things a stage further to give an even moremastertape-like feel.

‘The headline
news is theclarity and poiseof this package’

PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Thomas Alva Edison’s Triumph Phonograph sported the first tangential tracking
tonearm back in 1877, but the ‘modern era’ began with designs including
the American Truline and Orthosonic of the 1950s, and the British BJ of the’60s. Turntable packages like the Marantz SLT-12 (1963) and Harman Kardon
Rabco SL-8 (1969) followed later that decade, with the Garrard Zero 100SB(1971) and B&O Beogram 4000 (1974) leading the ’70s parallel-tracking trend.
Revox brought out its sophisticated, high-end B790 in 1976, and then theB795 followed. It took Technics to really popularise the breed, however, withthe radical compact SL10 (1979). Pioneer’s flagship PL-L1000 (1980) was animpressive beast, less so were Mitsubishi’s LT 20 and LT 30 – although the LT-5V
vertical version (1981) was fun. In the ’80s, Goldmund made belt-driven servo
arms (the T3 and T5), and Souther’s SLA-3 (1984) was a popular design. The same
year also saw the Swedish-designed Airtangent – a complex parallel tracking‘air-bearing’ tonearm that made a real stir in the high-end. In 1987 Clearaudiobought the patents and manufacturing rights for the Souther Tri-Quartz andstarted production of its TQ-I (Tri-Quartz Improved) tonearm a year later.

ABOVE: Dominated by its 40mm POM platter,
our Performance DC was fitted with the newTT5 linear tracker and Essence Aluminium MC.
The optional Swing Base allows the TT5 to berotated out of harm’s way when changing LPs

Indeed, its sense of sheer unassailability
is easy to become enamoured with. It’s
rather like moving up to good hi-res digitalfrom CD – suddenly there’s less fuss andbother as your attention falls directly on
the music, and not the means by which it’s
being reproduced.
Prefab Sprout’s ‘Radio Love’ from LionsIn My Own Garden [Kitchenware SK 8] isa case in point. It’s a great song but has
a rather stuttering, stop-start rhythm.
Perhaps the (then) young songwriter
Paddy McAloon was trying to be clever,but it can make some turntables falter,
when the music becomes disjointed. Not
here though, because the Clearaudio
combination sounded calm and composed,
drawing me into the emotion of the song.
It’s a credit to the deck that myattention wasn’t distracted by the ratherlo-fi production values (it’s a very sparse,
low-rent, early ’80s recording), and instead
focused on the plaintive vocals, staccato
drumming and scratchy rhythm guitar
work. All this time, despite a rather wellworn pressing, there was a satisfying senseof ease – leaving me blissfully unaware of
the less than perfect surfaces.
The only downside to this fine turntable,
arm and cartridge combination is, perhaps,
an occasional lack of charm. Some will
want a vinyl front end that has a strong
sense of ‘self’, whereas the Performance
DC/TT5 is more like a functional tool than
one with a rampaging ego. This is mostobvious with jazz or classic rock, when thedeck’s refusal to sweeten things up mightleave some a little cool. Donald Byrd’s

www.hifinews.co.uk | REPRODUCED FROM HI-FI NEWSLabreport
Clearaudio PERFORM. DC/TT5

ABOVE: Three-point geometry makes for easy levelling, and fine-speed adjustment isachieved via three small screwheads on the plinth rear, next to the DC PSU input. The
integral tonearm cable (not shown here) exits from the base of the deck‘Lansana’s Priestess’ from Streetlady[Blue Note BN-LA140-F] soundedslightly too cerebral for my taste,
and Aphrodite’s Child’s ‘Aegian Sea’
from 666 [Vertigo 6673 001] sure
had a vast, epic soundstage but
didn’t seem as sweet and beguilingas perhaps it should.

scything a clear path
Otherwise – and while the headline
news is the clarity and poise of thispackage – the punchline lies in
its superlative stereo imaging. In
common with all tangential-trackers
that I’ve come across, it develops
a wonderful soundstage that’swide, deep and tall, while giving
the general feeling that everything
within is perfectly in phase andlocked into place.
This was particularly evident on
Chic’s ‘Happy Man’ from C’est Chic
[Atlantic SD 19209], a recordingthat isn’t great by any standards,
being pretty densely mixed andrather heavily compressed. Yet thisturntable/arm combination delivereda cathedral-sized recorded acoustic,
wherein every strand of the mix wasclear to hear.
Despite a murky sound withmost turntables I’ve played thistrack on, the Performance DC/TT5
seemed able to scythe throughthe undergrowth, exposing it as asurprisingly well-produced song.
The TT5 certainly seems to be oneof those hi-fi components that will
have you questioning your previous
thoughts on the recording quality ofmany of the discs in your collection.
Particularly pleasing were thestereo images, for inside the vast
recorded acoustic it threw out, all
the elements of the mix appeared as
granitically solid. There was no senseof the lead vocal being vague as you
heard it locked precisely between
the plane of the loudspeakers.
Tonally this combo is satisfyingly
smooth, but ever so slightly lighterin the bass than some price rivals.
It’s characteristically tidy sounding,like other Clearaudio decks, with ataut upper bass that’s refreshingly
devoid of overhang. This doesn’t
give the low end any artificial added‘ballast’, although listeners looking
for an injection of warmth andwallop could redress this in theirchoice of moving-coil cartridge.
I accept that some vinylistas
might feel a little shortchanged by
its faint lack of euphony, but thePerformance DC/TT5’s general air ofneutrality rather suited my musicaltastes. The aforementioned Chic
funk track with its bouncing bassline
was a case in point, and I also
enjoyed electronic music very muchthrough this package. New Order’sBlue Monday [Factory FAC73] wasa delight, the turntable providing
a powerful, driving bass line that
didn’t overpower things further up
the frequency range.
If tonally less than sumptuous,
this Clearaudio combination will stillpull the listener into the mix andbeguile them with the large amountof detail it digs from the groove.
Indeed, the solidity of the stereo
soundstage proves a joy with any
type of music.

We tested the first Performance deck – in its ‘Black Pearl’ finish– way back in 2009 when it featured a clear acrylic platter,outboard AC motor, manual speed adjustment and peripheral
belt drive [HFN Jun ’09]. Fast forward some eight years and thelatest ‘Performance’ is really another deck altogether, with anelectronically-governed three-speed DC motor driving a POM/
Delrin platter via an alloy sub-platter beneath. As supplied it
was running +1.3% fast but the grommet-screw adjustment(s)facilitated a final speed accuracy of +0.05%. The 4sec start-up
and 0.07% peak-weighted W&F [see Graph 1, below] are good,the latter especially so for a DC motor application which,typically, suffer more low-rate drift than refined synchronous
AC motor solutions. The patented ‘CMB’ (Ceramic MagneticBearing) continues to deliver the low rumble we’ve measured
from previous Clearaudio decks: just –71.3dB here (DIN-B wtd,re. 1kHz/5cm/sec), although the through-groove figure of–67.8dB is marginally less impressive.
The partnering TT5 linear-tracking tonearm is exquisitely
constructed with a fine 135mm woven-fibre wand fitted with a‘pinch’ fingerlift and small, but very secure, cartridge mounting
platform. All these features inform both the low 6-7g effective
mass of the arm and also its elegant resonant behaviour,
the principal bending mode a diffuse 120Hz with a higher-Q
harmonic at 240Hz. The short series of modes between 400Hz2kHz are at a low level and decay reasonably swiftly [see Graph2]. The nature of the sliding ‘bearing’ inevitably means there
is some free play but, correctly set up, it offers a low ~20mg
horizontal friction with very low <10mg vertical friction. PMABOVE: Wow and flutter re. 3150Hz tone at 5cm/sec(plotted ±150Hz, 5Hz per minor division). Absolute
33.3rpm, 45rpm and 78rpm speed is user-adjustable

HI-FI NEWS VERDICTThe new £3800 Clearaudio
parallel-tracking Performance
DC package is a highly enticing
proposition. Indeed, the TT5
tonearm really makes it greaterthan the sum of its parts, bringing
a wonderfully spacious and stablesound that you’ll struggle to getfrom conventional tonearms.
Factor in the superlative build,finish and compactness, and thiscombination punches way above
its price point.

Sound Quality: 84%0-------- 100

ABOVE: Cumulative resonant decay spectrum for
Clarify tonearm, illustrating various structural support
and tube vibration modes (100Hz-10kHz over 40msec)

HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS
Turntable speed error at 33.33rpm

33.34rpm (+0.05%)

Time to audible stabilisation

4sec

Peak Wow/Flutter

0.02% / 0.05%

Rumble (silent groove, DIN B wtd)

–67.8dB

Rumble (through bearing, DIN B wtd)

–71.3dB

Hum & Noise (unwtd, rel. to 5cm/sec)–55.4dB

Power Consumption

2-3W

Dimensions (WHD) / Weight428x130x380mm / 9kg

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