Pro–ject turntables and analogue accessories
Project turntables from your analogue specialist, Totally Wired. A wide range of turntable, accessories and expert advice available. Pro–ject turntables continue their rapid evolution and refinement – the latest Xpression III at NZ$ 999 is a remarkable feat of both value for money engineering and the shameless appropriation of cool bits of technology. The Acrylic platter being previously a feature on much more costly turntables like the Well Tempered. The dark glossy plinth with spiked feet could almost sport a Thorens badge. And the carbon fibre tonearm could be sold separately in a box with Linn stamped on it for twice the price of the complete Pro–ject. Did we mention that it even now comes with the new Ortofon 2M Red cartridge as standard? And you have an upgrade path with the addition of the new Speed Box 2 and Phono Box from Pro–ject. You‘d have to go a long way further upmarket to find a more comprehensively specified turntable and the sound will impress even the most serious analogue purist. I know I would have killed for this kind of performance 20 years ago and the present price makes it all the more remarkable.
Pro–ject’s range is actually quite chaotic and in a constant state of flux - and in New Zealand we are at a bit of a disadvantage in that not every model makes it to our shores and there are inevitable gaps in supply. That said, we do endevour to carry stock of the best selling and what we regard as the highest value for money components within the range.
The new Xpression is an obvious choice. Also the Debut III, NZ$ 649 in matt black or for a little more, finished in a choice of stunning glossy colours; has been greatly upgraded from the originally rather prosaic Debut with an all round program of improvements. Simply put, this is a great introduction to analogue at it’s price, all up and running with an Ortofon MM5 cartridge and dust cover.
Pro-Ject Essential/Phono USB turntable.
Shamelessly appropriating the best ideas of other turntable designers and applying them with unparalleled rat cunning, Project again redefine the entry level turntable - the new Essential model employs a motor driving a long silicon belt driving around the outside of the platter giving improved speed stability and ease of use when changing speed. The Uni-Pivot tone arm mimics units costing many times more than the entire turntable and delivers much better sound from the included Ortofon OM3 cartridge.
These things alone would be enough to make the Pro-Ject Essential the best sounding option at its price. But the addition of a USB and phono amplifier takes the value for money equation up another level again. Ignoring the USB capability for the moment, the new Pro-Ject connects directly to any amplifier and does not require an inbuilt or external phono stage. So it will run with any system such as the fantastic little NuForce amplifiers.
The digitized feed out via USB allows you to make quality recordings from your vinyl to computer for replay on your iPod or anything else you'd like to listen on. The sound quality of the Pro-Ject is remarkable for the price - open and detailed, and for once we can say, completely uncompromised by the features it includes. In fact we suspect the inbuilt phono stage is better than that in many amplifiers and this alone makes it fantastic value. All the boxes are ticked and at just NZ$699 inclusive, we can’t see anything else that comes close. Find out more here.
A few ways to make your Pro–ject even better.
Jumping up to a better cartridge is another obvious route to better sound with the Pro–jects. Part of the key to the Pro–jects sound quality is the new Ortofon 2M Red cartridge and these are now available for use on other turntables.
The new 2M cartridge range is developed together with the Danish designer ‘MøllerJensen Design’ from Copenhagen, Denmark – the same designer who designed the award winning cartridge MC Jubilee and the Kontrapunkt series.
2M is designed for precise and accurate retrieval of the information in the record groove. The design is optimised for ease of mounting, with the cartridge weight and size intended fit the most common turntables at the market today.
All of the 2M cartridges feature diamonds which are polished to the highest standards in the industry. The 2M Red features a tipped elliptical diamond, while the 2M Blue features a nude elliptical diamond. The 2M series has interchangeable stylus allowing you to upgrade further in the future.
You could drop in one of the better Ortofon M2 series – the Blue would be my pick - onto a Debut III and end up with a sound close to the Xpression. And with the Xpression you could go to a Dynavector DV 10X5 or even better DV 20X2h.
So you can see that there are a whole series of possibilities with a Pro-ject from us – from the basic Debut III straight into a competent amplifier, right up to an Xpression with better cartridge, speedbox and a serious phono stage totalling to $2000 or more. It just depends how much you love your records. Analogue is very much alive and kicking.
Above this level, we recommend turntable options from Thorens and the new Well Tempered range.
Note that the Pro–ject models we have described are manual turntables – this means that they will not switch off at the end of a record – in today’s world this is often not what a lot of us want to deal with and we have two German made Thorens models that solve this issue and do so in a completely uncompromised fashion – the TD158 and TD190. We suggest you consider both and talk with us to decide which of the models best suits your needs, in terms of sound, usability and budget.
The Speed Box II is more than just a little box to enable you to change from 33 to 45 on your Pro–ject (you can do this manually by getting in under the platter and moving the belt but that is pretty primitive in the 21s century). The circuitry actually makes the motor work a lot better. The improved speed stability does a lot for sound quality as notes become much more defined and less blurred. There is also a worthwhile drop in background noise as the motor gets fed a much cleaner current. You‘ll be surprised by how much of an overall improvement the SpeedBox makes and we‘d suggest this is easily the best value for money improvement. NZ$ 259
Many amplifiers these day don‘t even have a phone stage and so the Pro–ject Phono box series address this. And even if amps already have a phono stage in, often these are little more than an afterthought and the improvement produced by better circuitry, isolated in its own box and supplied with clean power is self evident. Pro–ject have a number of options in their Phono box range - the standout out model is actually an interesting hybrid of digital and analogue.
Here‘s how to get the best of analogue onto your iPod or computer – the new USB Phono stage from Pro–ject. Take the excellent little Phono Box 2, include high quality analogue to digital conversion and you have a USB feed running straight into your computer – for just NZ$ 295. In fact we‘d strongly suggest that even if you saw no immediate likelyhood of transfering your treasured vinyl into a digital format, the USB Phono Box II is easily the most sensible option as a phono stage. The straight analogue performance is very good – much better than cheaper options, and it‘s really only when you hit the Dynavector P75 that you’ll find something that is appreciably better. The little Cambridge Audio we also have at the same price has an incremental sonic advantage but lacks the USB output, and it‘s that extra future proofing that really is the clincher for us.
Why buy your new turntable from Totally Wired?
We know turntables - we have had a Linn LP12 at home for the last 20 years and we’ve spent many hours setting up and modifying the baby. Not to mention trying numerous cartridge and phono stage combinations - so we have a few clues about analogue.
We set them up properly - Linn training is pretty useful for this and we have all the right tools and bits. And we listen to every turntable before it goes out.
Take the time to talk to us and you’ll get the right turntable - this includes making sure you have the optimum cartridge and phono stage for your given budget.
We make a worthwhile donation to the World Wide Fund for Nature with every turntable sold.
We give you the choice of models and put our money where our moth is in terms of actually stocking them - we have Thorens, Pro-ject and new Well Tempered turntables always in stock.
The Terrace Houses
217 Stuart Street
Dunedin 9016
New Zealand
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(+64) 03 4790 444
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John Ransley and Sharon Guytonbeck are the principals behind Totally Wired. It’s our own business and we take pride in building something worthwhile.
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