The Wand 14-4 Master turntable
If rivalry and ambition are key forces driving the hi-fi industry, I’d argue nothing motors harder than the quest to build a better turntable. It’s cat nip for visionary engineers. Rega’s founder Roy Gandy saw the record player ultimately as a machine for measuring vibration and produced a book to detail the myriad challenges that presents. Linn’s Ivor Tiefenbrun designed the Sondek LP12 to be immune from acoustic feedback so that it could get maximum information from the record groove – to much the same end. But unlike Rega’s rigid, lightweight design solutions, the stout Sondek’s platter floated and wobbled on springs that needed expert tuning and fettling to work optimally. And what about the pros and cons of direct drive, parallel-tracking tonearms, air-pump bearings et al? Proof, maybe, that there is no ‘right’ approach to spinning vinyl. As the past half century has shown, however, shortage of innovative ideas isn’t a problem.
One of the more intriguing recent manifestations of ‘different thinking’ is the Wand 14-4 Master from a company based in New Zealand called Design Build Listen. Its formative days were spent supplying amplifier kits for budding DIY audio constructors. But as you might hope, design, build and listen is exactly what founder and mechanical engineer Simon Brown did before launching his unique, big bore carbon fibre unipivot tonearm, the Wand, on an unsuspecting but, these days, increasingly appreciative world.
A lot has happened in recent years and key developments – evolution of the tonearm and the emergence of a simpatico turntable and phono stage – have been reported by the Ear. But the Wand 14-4 Master turntable you see before you, distinctively double plinthed and battery powered, represents a clear next step that warrants another hands-on appraisal.
In a very literal sense, the Wand 14-4 Master builds on the design of the existing Wand 14-4 turntable by adding a plinth-sized Wand Iso Base unit (available as a retro fitting for existing 14-4 decks) with the aim of improving isolation from vibration and, rather more radically, electrical noise. This falls to the battery pack located in the base which, when powering the turntable instead of the mains, seeks to reap gains in dynamics and resolution. Battery drive is also available, as supplied, in the guise of an outboard unit called the Wand EV. Either way, an overnight charge is claimed to give a day’s mains-free operation.
Supplementing theWand 14-4 Master’s intriguingly named Zentroidal isolation system, more on which later, the Master gets Isoacoustic Gaia feet, one at the back, two at the front for ease of levelling and basic ‘tripod’ stability. As well as yet more incremental gains in resolution, these are also said to provide better isolation from footfall. Also on the Master’s upgrade inventory is the carbon fibre Wand Mat and silk finish carbon fibre top deck. The Wand tonearm benefits from a Series B makeover which, according to Brown, is the biggest design mod in its 10-year existence. Mostly aimed at improving the user experience, adjusting the overhang of the rear weight system now involves an extremely accurate screw thread and set-up is further assisted by the introduction of a plastic protractor and a new micro mount system.
The still current Wand 14-4 turntable that forms the basis of the Master is essentially an amalgam of Brown’s best ideas formulated from first principles and honed over many years. A belt drive design, yes, but one that, to maintain the dynamic vigour of music, has a flat platter-hugging belt that’s custom made with very little stretch and provides a stronger connection than most belt drive systems but without allowing motor noise to enter critical points.
As for the platter itself, it’s generously oversized – as the turntable’s name references, 14 inches in diameter rather than the usual 12 inches. The advantages, as Brown explains, don’t require a PhD in quantum mechanics to understand: a 20 per cent thicker platter gives you 20 per cent more inertia but a 20 per cent bigger diameter gives you 40 per cent more inertia. The larger size also lets you have a bigger pulley with less dynamic slippage, Brown admits he chose the largest pulley that would fit, the better to combat flutter.
While size matters, the sandwich construction of the platter is important, too, with an acrylic top layer providing coupling with vinyl and aluminium bringing the mass. The combination is said to resist the transfer of vibration from the belt to stylus. Moreover, the DC motor has a self-adjusting speed servo that monitors platter behaviour so that long-term variations in the belt, bearing, power supply or, indeed, the motor itself won’t affect speed stability. Mounting for the motor, after much experimentation, settled on a laser-cut stainless steel labyrinth plate that prevents the motor from rotating about its main axis yet allowing yaw in other planes, supporting drive rigidity while giving a long path for vibration isolation.
Like almost every element of its design, the Wand’s main bearing – which isn’t conspicuously chunky or made from exotic materials – seeks to be as ‘quiet’ as possible, as in not generating or transmitting noise. Pitching for the same ideal, the Baltic plywood plinth structures are machined using a computerised router but with additional strategic surgery to move the centre of gravity to the centre of the three sprung feet and as close as possible to the stylus playing arc, the stillest point of Simon’s so called Zentroidal suspension. The serried holes along the sides of the plinth are there to disperse and scatter any vibrations originating from the motor mount.
The Wand 14-4 Master was supplied with a 10.3-inch Wand tonearm fitted with a Hana Umami Blue MC cartridge. The supplementary units are the Wand EV battery power supply and the Wand EQ phono stage, which can also run off the EV with a splitter cable. It’s an excellent match, the mains-free operation offering a real performance uplift, but later I replaced it with a Tom Evans Groove+ SRX Mk2.5 phono stage which unlocks still more of the cartridge/arm/turntable’s resolving potential. Simon actually approves of the tonally quite lean Tom Evans stage, mentioning that some valve phono stages might over-egg the natural warmth of the Hana.
He has a lot to say about the role of the cartridge itself and how the Wand 14-4 Master can help it overcome some inherent drawbacks. ‘Cartridges are electromechanical transducers like loudspeakers and thus similarly inefficient,’ he begins. ‘Most speakers are significantly less than 1% efficient. My guess is that cartridges are way below this, but even if they are 1% efficient, it means 99% of the energy of the stylus being dragged along the groove is going into extraneous vibration. And half of this is pumping down the armtube, making its life exciting, and half of it goes into the LP to hang out for a while and mess with the music.’
‘As the cartridge is designed to pick up vibrations, it will pick up any and all that are going, not just the music. It will just as well pick up vibrations that have been exciting the armtube resonances or bouncing around the record and being picked up again (diminished but randomly time smeared). There are also the vibrations of music being played loud enough in the room to be fun but impinging on your vinyl system. So yes, it’s all about vibrations. Sorting out the vibrations you do want (music) from the vibrations you don’t (resonances and air or floor borne vibrations).’
Naturally, the unipivot arm has a crucial part to play but, as Simon is at pains to explain, not all unipivots are born equal. ‘I would comment that the UK experience is mostly of 1960s uber lightweight uni-pivots which owe much of their sound to their flimsy resonant nature,’ he contends.
‘The Wand bearing is more like a hip joint with a synthetic diamond ball sitting in tungsten carbide cup. The drag force of the stylus (continuously modulated with music) is angled approximately up the line of the cantilever to the contact point in the cup making it very rigid. I would argue that this is actually more rigid than ball bearings which must by definition have clearance for them to move. The bearing in the Wand tonearm is also located firmly in the main body, a big lump of brass that acts as a virtual earth while the mass of the counterweight has been minimised. The armtube is the other obvious feature being large diameter yet, being made of carbon fibre is not that much heavier than average. This diameter makes it four to ten times stronger than most arms out there, pushing the resonances to a region more easily damped. It’s a bit like the BBC’s old light but damped loudspeaker cabinet argument, as in the LS3/5a.’
So much for theory. Whatever your take on the strangely compelling (or not) fusion of artisan-rustic and carbon-layered tech, the Wand 14-4 Master looks every inch a turntable built for high performance and, running on battery power alone, maybe one with an extra superpower up its sleeve. Both conspicuously rugged and delicate, the intentionally weedy, almost toy-like, plastic tonearm lift contrasts starkly with the unvarnished, two storey mass of the Baltic ply plinth structure and the chunkiness of the rotary control that flips from mains to battery power. And in the completely sleek tubular carbon unipivot tonearm, sans any form of right-angled finger lift, tremendous strength and all-but frictionless sensitivity are superimposed.
Sound quality
The first and perhaps deepest impression that the Wand 14-4 Master makes is of direct drive-like grip and dynamics riding alongside the openness, fluidity and finesse of well executed belt drive. It’s a best of both worlds proposition, presumably just as intended. This is swiftly joined by a growing appreciation of the kind of fractal-like, fine-detail resolution that can only be experienced with the establishment of a very low noise floor – especially impressive with mains detritus swerved by battery operation and at its very best with the Tom Evans phono stage in play, even if it isn’t battery powered.
Downstream of the vinyl is a Leema Acoustics Tucana II Anniversary integrated amplifier driving a pair of Oephi Immanence 2 standmount speakers on Slate Audio stands sitting on Townshend Audio Podiums, all tied together with a Nordost cable loom. So, nothing to muddy the waters there.
Simon Brown hints that the Hana Umami Blue might well sound warm and luxurious in situ and, in league with the Wand EQ phono stage running on battery power, a cosy tonality is certainly apparent. But that isn’t the case with the Tom Evans taking care of business. The Groove+ SRX Mk2.5’s previously noted leanness, extraordinary transparency and temporal alacrity acts more like a shot of adrenaline. Maybe even Clark Kent ripping open his shirt to reveal the big S t-shirt. Certainly, a thumping response to Elvis’s plea “a little less conversation, a little more action please”.
I think more convincingly than any other turntable I’ve had in my listening room, the Wand 14-4 Master delivers a soundstage of stunning solidity richly furnished with ambient cues and a raw sense of life, pace and energy. Even spinning an over-familiar and physically well-worn LP such as Donald Fagen’s Nightfly, the 14-4 M immediately makes it sound fresher, cleaner, clearer and more tactile with razor-sharp timing, a sympathetic rendering of Fagen’s too often mangled vocal and realistically proportioned dynamic swings. And this without exciting a steely zing from the Oephi’s fabulously revealing but ever unforgiving ribbon tweeter.
The combo’s openness, low frequency extension, tunefulness, tenacity and the overall level of insight provided by the Wand 14-4 Master are never more evident than when tracking a largely forgotten, gloriously over-produced (by Phil Ramone) ‘80s gem of an LP from Michael Sembello, Bossa Nova Hotel. Godzilla, which opens side two replete with chilling, synth generated ‘Zilla battle cries, is just about as flat-out OTT as it gets and can sound a spiky, brittle, shattered mess on some obviously overwhelmed decks. But what’s remarkable here is the way the tumultuous and disparate information present in the signal is integrated and weighted so well that the track is allowed to communicate clearly and lucidly without tangling itself into a turgid, high decibel, slightly alarming morass. Analogue at its very finest.
Conclusion
With so many good, great and truly wonderful turntable systems on the market, there’s probably no reason to go wandering into the far leftfield regions of boutique, artisan audio to give your vinyl collection a special spin. Probably. But if you do and happen across the odd looking yet curiously alluring Wand 14-4 Master, I’ll warn you now, such is the strength of the spell that might be cast you won’t be wondering why it’s called the Wand.