Design Build Listen Wand 14.4 turntable/Wand Plus tonearm

I have been aware of the Wand tonearm for some time and it has certainly earned itself a good reputation since it was launched by New Zealand manufacturer Design Build Listen back in 2011.

But when I finally got a good look at the Wand 14.4 turntable in the flesh in the Whole Note Distribution room at the UK Audio Show in Daventry, my appetite was well and truly whetted and I placed my order for a review sample there and then.

I was impressed by the sheer quality of finish of this Kiwi combo and it struck me as a lot of turntable tech for the money. Its beautiful German plywood plinth looked very sexy and the large platter makes a real statement. The hi-tech look of the Wand Plus tonearm completes the picture beautifully.

Introduced only in 2019, the Wand 14.4 turntable takes its name from that large, 14in platter, which has four alternating layers of acrylic and aluminium. Designer Simon Brown says that the large platter gives it more inertia for a given mass. He says if you make it 20% thicker, it has 20% more inertia, but that making it 20% larger gives it 40% more inertia.

Flat Swiss

That large platter is driven via a custom-made Swiss flat belt by a servo-controlled DC motor that references a series of holes drilled in the underside of the platter. To cut down on the transmission of vibration the motor is mounted on an ‘acoustic labyrinth plate’.

Brown says that the cutouts in the underside of the base are designed to disperse and spread vibration and to stop motor noise getting to the tonearm and bearing system. The holes are also said to help shift the centre of gravity to the centre of the suspension, which is the stillest point, which he says gives maximum isolation.

The Wand Plus 10.5in unipivot tonearm supplied with the turntable is also a bit of a work of art. Its 22mm diameter carbon fibre arm tube looks very hi-tech and, according to Brown, is four times stiffer than a ‘normal diameter’ arm.

The arm sits on a vertical shaft in the base and its one-point bearing is housed in the substantial stainless steel bearing housing/counterweight. Weighing in at 500g, Brown says that it should be able to be balanced by most subchassis decks.

Putting the turntable together out of the box was pretty straightforward and Whole Note Distribution provide links on its website to some very helpful videos made by Design Build Listen.

The arm is another matter, I think, and not for the faint-hearted. It comes in two major parts – the arm tube/bearing housing-cum-counterweight with a flying lead that needs to be fed out through the mounting hole to the phono output block. The other half of the equation is the base, which on my review sample had not been pre-mounted in the elongated hole in the plinth, and so I had to use the protractor provided to get the base in the right position. Not difficult – you slip one hole in the protractor over the turntable spindle and position the base so that the hole at the other end of the protractor slips over the arm bearing shaft in the base. The same protractor allows overhang to be adjusted by rotating the arm in its base until it follows the right trajectory across the record. The cartridge mounts into a laser-sintered titanium headshell inside the carbon fibre tube, but it has no elongated slots to adjust overhang, which has to be done by loosening the retaining screw and rotating the arm in its base. Height can be easily adjusted by slackening off one Allen bolt.

I used the excellent Goldring Eroica LX cartridge for my listening. Cartridges are balanced in the arm by using a combination of thin aluminium plates bolted to the back of the counterweight and a 2g weight that sits between the cartridge and the headshell. I found I needed one plate and the headshell weight to achieve the optimal 1.8g tracking force. The plates can also be rotated to make sure the cartridge sits square in the groove.

As I say, it is a bit fiddly and definitely not for the faint-hearted. Luckily, however, any decent retailer will do all of this for you as part of the service. It is only us poor reviewers that have to share that pain! I have to say though that once it was all set up, the deck remained set and did not need any further tweaks.

Sound quality

To assess what this Kiwi combo could do, I hooked it up to a Puresound T10 transformer and P10 valve phono stage (Wand does offer a phono stage but I did not have that to test) through Russell K. RED 120 Se speakers driven by either a T+A PA1100E or an Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister amplifier.

Cueing up the cartridge to play a track can perhaps be a little tricky to relearn as the fingerlift is integrated in the tip of the arm. This is to reduce vibrations, and that it is more ergonomic with a unipivot, where a fingerlift out the side will tilt the arm over. I tend to lightly support the front edge of the arm tube with my finger while lowering onto the record surface. You can see the cartridge body through the hole in top of the arm tube and so it isn’t that traumatic.

Once the Eroica was safely nestling in the groove of ‘Broad Daylight’ from Ben Sidran’s The Doctor Is In album, I was instantly impressed by the articulation and warmth of his vocals, the weight and power of the piano and how delicately it conveyed drumkit. The bass line moved well and the whole track simply flowed well and made sense.

Moving on to the title track from Sarah Jarosz’s ‘Build Me Up’ from Bones, the Wand portrayed her mandolin with great delicacy and leading edge attack and it conveyed the intricate twists and turns of her play very well. Her voice was full of emotion and never glared, while pizzicato violins were well delineated and cellos had great weight and detail. And when she pushed a note, the Wand conveyed it without making her seem to shout. A very good performance.

Next up was one of my favourite tracks from Stephen Fearing’s superb The Secret of Climbing album, namely ‘Red Lights in the Rain’. It is just Fearing solo playing his beautiful Manzer Cowpoke guitar, and the Wand captured the intimacy and power of this excellent recording, conveying the twists and turns of his play and the body resonances and dynamics of the guitar. His voice was full of emotion and had great dynamics without ever going over the top. A truly excellent rendition. It took me back to when I saw him play it live recently at a very small, intimate venue.

Finally I spun up the brilliant, uptempo ‘No One Emotion’ from George Benson’s 20/20 album. The driving synth bass was well conveyed and the track had all of the impetus that I would have hoped for. Benson’s vocals were open and expressive and the track really moved along apace.

Finally, I just had to try a great album from a guitarist that Stephen Fearing told me in his interview in the August issue was one of his favourites, John Martyn. I reached for the half-speed mastered version of Solid Air and played the title track.

A Wandering Smile

Now, Martyn’s voice can be tricky to handle and some equipment totally falls apart at the challenge. The Wand was not one of them. It conveyed Martyn’s vocals and guitar with great clarity and precision and got an iron grip on that deep, tuneful bass line. All in all, the Wand took this difficult test in its stride and left me smiling.

If I have a criticism, and it is a minor one, it is that the Wand is rather more sensitive to footfall than I would have liked. My room has a suspended floor and stepping too heavily in certain places could cause a small skip. Careful siting and support is therefore worth paying attention to, but again, your dealer will sort that out for you. If you have a concrete floor, or one less bouncy than mine, there is unlikely to be an issue.

So is it worth the money? Absolutely, it is. I would wholeheartedly recommend this turntable and arm combo. It is well made, beautifully finished and turned in an excellent performance. I would rate it as one of the very strongest contenders at the price.

Technical specifications

Wand 14.4 turntable

• Belt-drive
• 33 and 45rpm (78rpm factory option)
• Servo-controlled DC drive motor
• 14in four-layer aluminium and acrylic platter
• German plywood plinth
• Three Zentroidal isolating feet
• Price £3,499

Wand Plus 10.5in arm

• Unipivot bearing
• Carbon fibre arm tube
• Laser sintered titanium headshell
• Unscreened Cardas internal wiring, <35pF per channel
• Effective mass 12.5g
• Weight 500g
• Price £1,499

Manufacturer

Design Build Listen

www.designbuildlisten.com

+64 21 502037

UK distributor

Whole Note Distribution

www.wholenotedistribution.co.uk

+44(0)20 39115 549

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