Pro-Ject Debut Pro

There must come a point when it ceases to be a ‘revival’, mustn’t there? We’re deep into the 21st century now, after all, and for the entirety of it the vinyl format has consistently demonstrated its ability to coexist quite happily alongside the mainstream, where its many and various charms are appreciated much more than its numerous shortcomings are vilified.

In fact, for the last dozen or so years, vinyl has seen a marked increase in sales at a time when other forms of physical media were often in steep decline. The oft-touted ‘vinyl revival’ wasn’t just something that rolled neatly off the tongue and wasn’t just a short-lived ‘hipster fad’; although the trajectory of new vinyl sales is more level now, the market for vinyl remains buoyant and is still growing, just not growing unsustainably. Vinyl now represents over half the physical media music sales in the US and other countries are not far behind.

Vinyl’s viability as a music-storage format this far into the digital age is thanks in no small part to Pro-Ject. It’s been over 30 years since Heinz Lichtenegger founded Pro-Ject Audio Systems in Austria (Heinz founded his audio company in Zistersdorf, which is around 10km from the compamy’s current Mistelbach home) – and in that time Pro-Ject has established itself as a vinyl ‘gateway’; luring the curious into a sincere and life-long habit.

There have been some very successful and competitive high-end Pro-Ject turntables over the last three decades, of course, but it’s as a purveyor of entry-level and mid-range record players that the company has really cemented its reputation. And it’s into the vague-yet-definite area where ‘entry-level’ becomes ‘mid-range’ that it’s pitched the latest version of its long-running ‘Debut’ series: the Debut Pro.

Debut of the debut

And there’s no two ways about it, we’ve come quite a long way since the Pro-Ject, um, debuted its first turntable in 1991, the Pro-Ject 1. That turntable cost £109 and, frankly, looked and felt like it. The first of the Debut line dates to 1999. The Debut Pro, by way of contrast, is impressively constructed and flawlessly finished – and if it doesn’t look quite as expensive as, say, the Technics SL-1500C with which it would seek to compete, well, that’s because it isn’t.

Your money buys some uncompromised engineering and quite a lot of expensive or esoteric materials, though. Yes, the plinth is common-or-garden MDF, but it’s extensively braced, and its paint is applied by hand. The platter is die-cast aluminium, precision balanced and features a generous ring of thermoplastic elastomer on the inside for resonance-damping and wow-and-flutter suppression purposes. It’s anti-magnetic, so the deck can be used with moving-coil cartridges if you so desire. It even features a notch for the record-label to rest in, and there’s an optional puck available to ensure your vinyl is firmly secured.

The tonearm, too, is a new design that Pro-Ject describes as a ‘carbon-aluminium sandwich’ – an aluminium inner layer takes care of damping, while the carbon fibre outer skin offers complete rigidity. The arm’s bearing housing is CNC-milled nickel-plated aluminium – the tonearm action is smooth and there’s no discernible play in the bearings. And the design of the tonearm base means adjustment of both azimuth and vertical tracking angle is possible – so if you want to use a heftier mat or different cartridges, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Mind you, it’s probably best to have a long, hard listen to the cartridge that’s prefitted to this tonearm before you start deploying your tiny screwdrivers. The Pro-Ject ‘Pick It Pro’ moving magnet cartridge is a refinement of Ortofon’s well-regarded 2M Red, fettled in a drive for greater punch and vividity. It’s no slouch.

Elsewhere, the Debut Pro is as you’d expect a ‘entry-level-edging-into-midrange’ turntable to be. The plinth sits on three damped, height-adjustable aluminium feet – though in fairness they’re a lot more use at making sure the platter is level than they are at isolating it from any kind of vibration above ‘extremely mild’. Speed change is via a little toggle switch at the bottom left of the plinth – the centre position is ‘off’, left is ‘33.3rpm’ and right is either ‘45rpm’ or ‘78rpm’. If you’re interested in the latter, you need to use the round, rather than the flat, drive-belt and position it on the larger of the two pulleys. The Pro features an electronically regulated synchronous drive motor, and Pro-Ject promises ‘the most accurate and stable speeds’.

Oh, and there’s a clear Perspex dust-cover attached via two hinged prongs attached to the rear of the plinth.

Simple set-up

Set-up couldn’t be much simpler. Once you’ve levelled the plinth on its shelf using the adjustable feet, the counterweight needs to be put in position and then tracking force can be adjusted using the gauge Pro-Ject provides. The anti-skating weight needs its little loop of fishing wire slipping over the tonearm post, and then you’ve only to connect some stereo RCA cables to your amplifier – Pro-Ject includes a pair with integrated grounding cable in the packaging. It’s a ten-minute job unless you have sausage fingers like the new King.

For the purposes of this test, the Debut Pro is wired to a Leema Elements phono stage using the cables it comes with, and the Elements is hooked to a phono-stageless Naim Uniti Star streamer/amp using QED Reference Audio Evolution interconnects. From there, the Naim joins a pair of Acoustic Energy AE1 mkIII SE (mounted on Atacama Moseco 6 stands) using QED Reference XT400 speaker cable.

And then for starters, a copy of the eponymous album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra [Luaka Bop] is set turning.

What’s most immediately striking about the sound of the Debut Pro is just how assuredly it handles the ebb and flow of the recording. Detail levels are high, sure, and the Pro-Ject has no problem describing the texture of Sander’s saxophone – but there’s a patient, unhurried aspect to this record player’s sound that’s in complete sympathy with the recording. It understands the fragmentary nature of the composition(s) well, and makes the many transitions smooth and naturalistic.

Asserts itself

Don’t imagine this means the Pro-Ject is in any way passive or unengaged, though. When the symphonic elements of the recording begin to really assert themselves, the Pro is more than capable of faithfully tracking the dynamic shifts. It understands power, all right – but it understands the low-level harmonic light and shade of a recording just as well.

Switching to the rather more forthright charms of Ian Dury’s New Boots and Panties!! [Stiff] allows the Pro-Ject to fully explain itself where mastery of the frequency range is concerned. The low end is deep, detail-packed and acceptably sprightly, with rhythms and tempos given good, if not quite class-leading, levels of expression. It’s similarly decisive at the opposite end, allowing treble sounds to bite and crunch without getting in any way unruly. And in the midrange, the Pro describes every facet of Dury’s inimitable vocal with absolute confidence – though he’s by turns mawkish, libidinous or gor-blimey-missus music-hall chappie, this turntable makes his intentions, his motivations and his execution absolutely plain.

But it’s the interaction between members of the band – nearly but not quite the Blockheads at this point – that properly establishes the Debut Pro as a turntable to be reckoned with. There’s a coherence and a unity about the way the Pro-Ject presents what are, at times, quite complex arrangements, that makes them sound like genuine performances. That’s ‘performances’ in the sense of a group of musicians in one room, playing with and responding to each other in real time, with a commonality of purpose in an attempt to bring an arrangement to life. Vinyl is a format that seems to lend itself to this sort of naturalistic timing, but not every record player is capable of giving it the sort of apparently effortless expression the Debut Pro can. Despite lacking the last soupçon of freedom of low-frequency expression, this Pro-Ject offers a sense of overall unanimity that’s a match for any price-comparable rival.

Uncomplicated and unstoppable

And this is a stance from which the Pro is seemingly unable to be shifted, no matter how one might try. The chilly, square-edged Alles ist Gut by Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft [Groenland] has the sort of control of attack and decay that makes its stentorian nature plain, while the lushly organic and virtuoso sound of John Renbourn’s Can’t Keep From Crying [Transatlantic] flows forward in the uncomplicated and unstoppable manner of a river.

Really, there’s really only one difficulty the Pro-Ject Debut Pro faces, and that’s not even of its own making. It’s simply the strength of the rivals it competes with – from the aforementioned Technics SL-1500C, yes, but also from Rega with its Planar 3/Elys 2 combination. These are fomidable rivals, not only in sound and build terms, but in the almost fanatical devotion these companies have developed in some parts of the vinyl-enthusiast public. But it’s an indication of just how successful Pro-Ject has been with the Debut Pro, though, that it can go toe-to-toe with both of these acclaimed record players and make a compelling case for itself.

Technical specifications

Type Full size turntable

• Rotational Speeds (RPM) 33.3, 45, 78 (with adapter)
• Drive Mechanism Belt
• Speed Control Electronic (with manual adjustment for 78 RPM)
• Platter Type Aluminium/thermoplastic elastomer
• Platter Weight
• Bearing Type stainless steel axle in bronze bushing
• Plinth Configuration MDF
• Dimensions (h×w×d) 11.8 × 41.5 × 32cm
• Weight 6kg

Tonearm

• Type carbon/aluminium
• Tonearm Length (mm) 218.5
• Effective Tonearm Mass (g) 10

Phono Cartridge

• Type Moving magnet
• Stylus Elliptical
• Tracking Force (g) 2.0
• Load 47kOhm
• Compliance 12 μm/mN
• Output (at 1 kHz @ 3.45cm/s) 4mV
• Weight (g) 7.2
• Price £699

Manufacturer

Pro-Ject Audio Systems

project-audio.com

UK Distributor

Henley Audio

henleyaudio.co.uk   

+44(0)1235 511166

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