Clearaudio Basic Plus phono stage

Any audiophile worth their salt has heard of Clearaudio. Fantastic turntables, up to and including the monster Statement table for $150k, a wonderful array of phono cartridges, great record vacuum machines and many other products related to the reproduction of vinyl! One such item is the subject of this review: the 2-chassis Clearaudio Basic Plus phono stage with the optional Accu + battery Power Supply.

The Basic Plus phonostage offers both MM and MC capabilities, with enough gain to drive the lowest output cartridges. It is a very simple unit to operate with a single-button switching between MM and MC functionality. Another nice feature is the dedicated power transformer, which resides outside the actual phonostage to keep the audio circuit as quiet as possible. The Basic is available in silver finish only.

The past year I have had a very intense interest in phono stages as I have added and subtracted phono cartridges to my system, not the least of which has been a $10k Koetsu Azule stone bodied, platinum moving coil cartridge. The common thread has been moving coil and very low output, which always presents a problem when mating up the cartridge to a phono stage. I have had phono stages in excess of $5,000 and have had phono stages below $1,000 and everything in between. The Clearaudio unit comes in at $1,800  for the full package.

Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings, the U.S. distributor of Clearaudio, was kind enough to leave the unit with me for an extended review period, which gave me ample time to learn the ins and outs of a unit, the chance to use it with plenty of differing and complimentary equipment and also the chance to evaluate it against similar products. In a nutshell, this little phono stage does a great deal of what the big expensive units do without some of the bells and whistles and without the extra cost that usually comes with all of that. If you need a phono stage that is quiet, will handle and moving magnet cartridge all but the absurdly low output moving coil cartridges with extremely low noise flooring and great dynamics, among other things and you do not want to take out a second on the house, then read on. If you want on the fly impedance switching and infinitely variable gain adjustments, or if you want it to make you a smashingly good cappuccino, then back out of the review slowly and go looking elsewhere.

The Clearaudio Basic Plus phono stage is a two-box affair and thankfully the boxes are small, easily stackable and quite attractive. The system consists of the phono stage itself and its outboard power supply initially, plus a third chassis for the additional battery power supply. All in all, the entire stack is 5.5 inches tall by 4.5 inches wide and 8 inches deep (the battery power supply is almost 2.5 inches deeper than the other two pieces). The whole affair is tidy and easily placed within a rack or on a stand. The unit is not only compact but it is also very dapper looking with its machined aluminum face plates. It looks more expensive than it is.

I immediately hooked up the two mini-chassis Basic + phono stage minus the Accu + battery Power Supply in my main reference turntable setup. The Clearaudio does not have an ON/OFF switch and is designed to be on at all times. A word of warning, it takes a while for the unit to fully burn in. That being said, if you have the patience to run it long hours and let it settle in, it will reward you for your patience.

You won’t be buying this unit to impress your audio friends, especially not if you want a massive chassis or bells and whistles. The Clearaudio, however, is a great performing phono stage at a price that will not require the Fed to advance you Tarp money! The unit is very straightforward with no unnecessary bobbles and bangles. The closest you will come to that is the blue led lights on the battery supply denoting ON, CHARGING or STANDBY. What is really great news is that this phono stage performed more than admirably with every cartridge I ran through it. The cartridges used over the period of six months ranged from a Dynavector 17D at roughly $1,100 to the full-on Koetsu Tiger Eye Platinum at $13,000. The Clearaudio pulled out the very best of each and every one of those cartridges.

This is the type of product that can open new doors in vinyl reproduction without breaking the bank. You could easily mate this up with any mid-line cartridge and be happy listening to your vinyl collection for a millennium. I found the combination of the Basic Plus and the Koetsu Urushi Vermillion to be a particularly well mated duo and I ended up setting this combo up in my Nottingham Hyper Space rig for the bulk of the review time. It treated my vinyl very well and was especially kind to high quality, reference level recordings. The Basic Plus made the most out of any source I threw its way but there is no doubt that the old adage of “garbage in, garbage out” holds true with this unit. Feed it source material that is compressed, over produced and full of effects (think Phil Spector and “Let It Be”) and you will get that kind of sound right back out of the unit. Treat it to well-engineered, high-quality vinyl pressings and you will get extremely enjoyable music with all the detail and excitement you could want.