Quote:
Originally Posted by miner
I am a fan of the double matrix but not the $5500 price. A member had all of the top RCMs and the double matrix was his preferred choice for his cleaning regime.
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***CARE*** From personal experience I have doubts about ClearAudio & their quality control.
After a lot of research, I recently purchased the ClearAudio Smart Matrix Record Cleaning Machine , replacing a basic Nitty Gritty machine that after 28 years of use, finally couldn't suck anymore.
Unfortunately there are small design faults with the Clearaudio machine
(basically ergonomic) and I had problems with it from day one, see below.
The Good:
- The machine looks great & has a high quality finish- looks the business.
- The packaging is first rate.
- Powerful suction, & with reverse mode, excellent cleaning results. A massive improvement over the old Nitty Gritty.
- Not as noisy as the old Nitty Gritty, and its actually fun to use!
- Most parts of the machine seem to be of good quality, with qualification- see below.
The Bad:
- as delivered, the cleaning platter was very badly warped & needed replacement as it made cleaning & vacuuming the record properly difficult.
- Replacement platter took over 2 weeks!!! to be shipped from Germany; the excuse given was that Clear Audio was busy preparing for the Munich Show- a terrible excuse, lets spend a fortune to get new clients, while p*ssing off our existing clients- makes no sense to me?
- New platter is also slightly warped. Reason (excuse) given was that the platters are made out of an anti-static plastic which tends to warp during manufacture- I have my doubts, but at least the warp is minor & I can clean records properly.
- After fitting of new platter- a day later the platter became loose & wobbled all over the place. Back to the serviceman- a lock nut had not been tightened correctly- an easy fix. Basic errors like this shouldn't happen- or am I being too tough?
Ergonomic Issues:
- Dust cover just sits on top of the machine- really there should be some way of making sure the dust cover is secure. Even a groove around the machine top would be better than nothing- as you quickly find that the dust cover damages the finish of the top of the machine- I fixed that by adding plastic stick down pads to protect the machine surface.
- Nowhere to place the screw down weight when you turn the record over or when placing or removing the record- placing the weight on the machine top has the potential to damage the surface- I fixed that by adding a stick down pad used to protect wooden flooring from damage from furniture feet.
Summary: As far as cleaning records- the machine does a great job, adding a few pads or a groove to secure the dust cover is a no-brainer. (for a machine that costs almost $2000 NZD, I feel they should have been provided).
The warped platter calls into question their quality control & the delay in providing a replacement is terrible customer service.
On the top of my list for a new turntable was a Clearaudio Innovation Compact turntable black acrylic w/ Magnify carbon tonearm.
Sadly given my experience above, I'm very reluctant to purchase another piece of equipment from this company.
Maybe I'm being too tough & just had some bad luck & purchased the one machine that slipped past their quality controllers?