Hi, everyone.
This is Brian from World Wide Stereo.
I'm here to talk to you about the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO turntable.
♪ [music] ♪
Before I talk about the turntable itself, I'll talk a little bit about Pro-Ject
as a company.
They started putting out turntables in the early '90s, you know,
when CD sales were booming, and vinyl was going away.
They wanted to make sure that people had access to quality equipment to listen
to music on what they felt was the best format.
Pro-Ject released their Debut series in the late '90s, '99 to be exact.
So Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO priced at $499 is the much-anticipated replacement
to Pro-Ject's long time, bestselling Debut Carbon.
According to Pro-Ject, they've taken their most popular turntable
design and improved every aspect of it.
While nine finishes seem like a lot, Pro-Ject keeps design simple.
There are no buttons, switches, or printing on the plinth.
And the speed control switch has been moved to the bottom of the plinth, allows
you to change speeds with a push of only a single button for more accurate and
stable playback speeds.
So when you first open the box for your Debut Carbon EVO, you're going to see
the setup manual.
And the nice thing about the setup manual is they give you a picture, step-by-step
guideline on how to set everything up, and actually how to take everything
out of the box.
And that's one of the nicest things that you can have because a lot of things
with turntables are mysterious to people especially if you're new to it and you
haven't had one for years, you may think that "I'm going to set it
up wrong," or, "I'm going to do something wrong, and I'm going to do something
so wrong, I'm going to break it."
So one of the important things that Pro-Ject did with the EVO is they added
these metal dampening feet that are also adjustable, so you can easily
level the unit.
Now when I took it out of the box, I checked my table, made sure
that was good.
Popped it onto the table, took my trustee LP leveler, and put it on.
And within a minute, because of the adjustable feet, you know,
in the front and the left and the right and in the back, I was able to really
adjust it to get it to a level point where I'm okay with playing it.
Now another important thing and the last thing that you do during the setup process
is setting up the anti-skate weight.
Now let me take off the cover, and show you where that is.
So what they do in the instructions is they actually tell you where you're
supposed to put it, and how you're supposed to put it on.
♪ [music] ♪
Ta-da.
What Pro-Ject did was made sure that they gave you a nice cable in the box, so it
was one less thing that you had to worry about.
And what they did was they gave you a semi-balanced cable.
Now, this is the semi-balanced cable.
Now what's important to know about this cable, in particular,
is one has this yellow to yellow side, one does not have this little yellow side.
And what is important about that is the semi-balanced portion of it.
So this yellow side is what's supposed to be plugged into your preamp.
So whether or not it's a standalone preamp from Pro-Ject, or it's one that's built
into your receiver or your stereo, whatever you're going to be plugging
this into, you're going to have to because this doesn't have the phono preamp.
Now a semi-balanced cable has three individual conductors
in each individual cable.
So it's going to use one for the tip and one for the sleeve.
Now the third cable in this is going to get connected to the jacket.
What it does when it connects to the jacket is it creates a better shielding
from exterior noise.
So electromagnetic interference, RF noise, it's creating just that one step better
protection, so you're hearing more of your record and not anything
from the outside world.
Also, the same as its predecessor, the Pro-Ject EVO's
gold-plated sockets provide the best kind of connection.
To talk about the EVO is really important, we'll kind of disassemble this.
We'll kind of work a little backwards so...
Now one of the nice things about the Pro-Ject EVO is it already comes with the
cartridge mounted on it.
This is their first level of the three levels that you can get
in this interchangeable series.
So if you're ever wanting to, you know, have a slightly better experience,
you can jump to their next level.
Now you can look at the tonearm itself, and it's something Pro-Ject's always been
known for is the quality of their tonearms.
So it's a super-stiff, lightweight, carbon fiber tonearm,
and it has a very nice smooth pivot.
So that's one of the really nice things that you will get with Pro-Ject turntables
is the arm itself is nice, and rigid, and light, and it's not going to adversely
affect the playback of your record.
So it comes with a little dampening mat which is nice which I would operate
to our core World Wide Stereo one.
And then we have our platter itself.
So the platter itself is super-heavy metal, and it also has right in here
the thermoplastic elastomer.
And that's going to add some dampening material to it as well.
So what Pro-Ject did with the motor assembly is they took something from
their higher end, their X1 series, and brought it
down into their Debut series.
So they're using a suspension motor with the TPE breezing to, you know,
reduce vibration which gives you a better playback overall.
So let's put this back together.
So one of the important things with this table is, what I found out it is,
it's really good for someone that really wants to get back into listening to vinyl,
or really wants to step up their game.
So it really is a good turntable for someone that really wants to take
listening to music seriously.
What I really enjoyed with this piece was, I really got to listen to, what I did was
test out a bunch of 7 inches.
And if you don't know about 7 inches, a lot of people will call them 45s,
but they play at both 33, and they play at both 45 revolutions per minute.
And one of the nice part about this piece, in particular,
is because it has the speed adjustor built into this toggle switch in the front,
I can easily switch between a 33 record to a 45 record without having to pull the
new unit apart, change the belt, and change where the timing is
going to be.
One of the things I really like about this cartridge is, not as much the
turntable itself, but the cartridge that was mounted with it,
the Rainier has this little cutout in the front.
And what I like to do is I will listen to certain tracks on an LP which most people
say you start at the beginning, you end at the end, but sometimes,
you just want to listen to that one track.
So with the Rainier cartridge, it has a little slot in it to make it a
lot easier to find the track that you're looking for.
So one of the big things that the Pro-Ject EVO does for you is it's an easy setup,
it's easy to use, and allows you really to focus on enjoying the music, and not worry
about how you're going to set it up.
This has been the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO. You can view this item online
at worldwidestereo.com, or if you happen to be in the area,
please, stop in at either our Ardmore or Montgomeryville showroom to check it
out in person.
We offer a 60-day return policy, free shipping, and we're authorized
dealers for everything we sell.
If you have any questions or comments, please, leave them in the comment section,
or do not hesitate to call us or email us at any time.
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and catch us on all our
social medial platforms.
This is Brian from World Wide Stereo.
♪ [music] ♪