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

Any thoughts on the Holbo deck from Slovenia? It combines an air bearing turntable with a linear tracking tonearm, which also runs on air.  Driven by rubber bands, though!

Got an excellent review: Holbo Mk II Airbearing Turntable Review | StereoNET International

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.

@mulveling For the Master Innovation field upgrade the whole bearing assembly for the Innovation part is removed and replaced with a new beefed-up one included in the upgrade kit. The result is the same as the current retail unit. My Innovation Wood was purchased August 2023 so it’s a relatively newer one.

If you go to the Clearaudio website the Master Innovation product page has the manual for the field upgrade. You can see exactly how that upgrade all works.

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

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

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.