Clearaudio Innovation Professional Power Supply Review

Even in original form with stock power supply and round-section drive belt, the Innovation clearly shows the benefit of its advanced engineering and materials. There’s an overarching sense of ease in its timing and pitch stability, playing acoustic piano for example with such authority that you know that any hint of waver in note modulation is a product of the very piano’s tuning, the master tape transcription or the tiniest of non-concentricities from the record.

While settling in with this arrangement, I came to realise that the SMPS has no place on the same mains as the rest of the system. Sharing the Nordost QBase distribution board with the power amp and phono stage always betrayed a mild HF haze and midband muddle that was easily diminished by running from a separate outlet; in this case an IsoTek Sigma on a different wall socket.

That cleaning-up operation was magnified again with the PP24V now powering the deck. Focusing on the frenetic drumming in ‘Slow Yourself Down’ from Camel’s first album, the new supply gave not just more body to the percussive onslaught, showing the shape as well as placement of tom‑toms, it tidied and made sense of the whole backing track. No wonder drummer Andy Ward got a co-writing credit for the number.