this video is on a brand new turntable from pro-ject
the debut carbon evo. evo as you might guess
is short for evolution the new evo model is the latest of an ever-evolving
world-class turntable from europe's pro-ject audio systems
if you want to read the full review on the evo click on the link in the
description that will take you to the full written review on audioadvice.com
we also have a full written comparison of the differences between the new evo
and the previous debut carbon dc model which we will also link below now let's
dive into the new debut carbon evo from pro-ject audio
systems i was really excited to get a
pre-production model of the debut carbon evo before pro-ject
even announced it to the world it was a ton of fun to go through all the testing
in this great new turntable pro-ject's first turntable back in the
1990s was called the debut as it was their debut into turntables
this model later evolved into the debut carbon
the debut carbon dc and now is getting some major upgrades and changing to the
debut carbon evo every version of the debut has just been
an incredible value offering far more performance than most
of the competition in the same price range
like all pro-ject turntables the debut carbon evo is a manual belt drive
turntable this means you need to flip a switch to
start things up move the tone arm over the record lower
the cue lever then raise the cue lever when the record ends
this is how almost 95 of turntables made today are designed
as there is no need to put a bunch of gears and parts under the tonearm which
could reduce the performance pro-ject had usually
offered a large range of color choices on some of their turntables and that
tradition continues with the evo being available in seven
different beautiful finishes pro-ject builds many turntables that cost
multi thousands of dollars and like the
previous models the evo is built to those same standards
fit and finish is just top notch as is the box that it comes packed
in taking the evo out of the box is a very easy process with all the parts
extremely well packed a manual belt drive turntable does not
really have a lot of features to talk about
but pro-ject did add something many people had been asking for with the evo
switching from 33 to 45 is now done by a simple rocker switch
underneath the turntable 78 speed is also now an
option to engage 78 you have to remove the platter
and install a different belt but it's nice to have those for those
rare 78 lp occasions as you can see on the debut carbon dc
to change from 33 to 45 requires you to remove the platter
the color choices which by the way all get an 8 coat lacquer finish
offer up high gloss black white and red satin black white
fur green golden yellow and steel blue plus a beautiful satin walnut finish
pro-ject recently introduced a new line of turntables in the
x series which are more expensive than the debut range
from the looks of it they took a lot of the tech from the x
and filtered it down into the new evo let's look at some of this new tech the
three feet are height adjustable and made from a combination of
thermoplastic elastomer and aluminum pro-ject uses the elastomer
called tpe in many of their upper end turntables
and we can verify it does an awesome job at damping out resonances
these are the feet on the debut carbon dc they're nice but they're not
adjustable and don't have the tpe isolation and they're not quite as wide
and these are the feet on the new evo they have tpe isolation and are fully
adjustable so you can perfectly level the turntable
the rocker switch under the table engages a variant on pro-ject's separate
speed box turntable speed control this uses a precision crystal to
generate the signal that goes to the motor
ensuring super accurate speed a feature like this is pretty much
unheard of in a turntable price like the new evo
and is an upgrade over the already great speed control in the debut carbon dc
project made a huge change to the motor in the evo
it now uses a large steel plate the motor mounts to
which shields the platter from the motor this is the debut carbon dc as you can
see they had a pretty clever way of mounting the motor here it's kind of on
this little elastic band here which isolates
it from the plinth on the new evo they've added a metal
shield preventing electrical interference from getting
up and out of that and it's also mounted on these little tpe
washers and there's some on the top and on each side here
so this is the platter on the original debut carbon dc
you can see how it looks like and uh it's a little resonant then we take a
look at the one on the new evo it's got this tpe
damping ring all around it and it's just much deader there's the
same platter but they've added this which also has that flywheel effect
the tone arm is a one piece carbon fiber design
this is one beautiful tonearm with zero play in its special sapphire bearings
pro-ject could not really find a way to improve this arm so it's the same as the
dc version samiko the u.s importer of pro-ject had
been working on a new line of phono cartridges for years
they wanted something that was a great value from a cost
performance standpoint sumiko worked with a team of engineers
in yokohama japan to develop a whole new lineup a couple of years ago
these new oyster cartridges all have a new anti-resonant body
and a special new generator system they sound fantastic and receive
tons of positive press from around the world one thing we love about the line
is the first three models have an interchangeable stylus
so you can effectively start out with the entry-level rainier
and should you wish when your stylus wears out and needs replacing
buy the stylus for the more expensive model and greatly improve your sound
the new evo comes with the rainier model mounted and aligned and we see
many people opting to upgrade to the highly regarded moonstone when it's time
for a new stylus we feel the rainier is a pretty decent
performance improvement over the ordophon red supplied with the dc model
too. wiring inside the carbon fiber arm is a
high purity copper with a separate shield that is all one piece
all the way to the solid gold plated rear mounted rca jacks
the connect-e cable is included with the evo this is a pretty serious rca
cable with great internal materials as the same one shipped with
their more expensive turntables pro-ject even compared different links
and decided that 1.23 meters sounded the best
while the separate cable allows you to upgrade things later this cable is very
good pro-ject made a running change in early
2019 to add these same features to the debut carbon dc
setup was a snap i especially like the very large stylus guard on the rainier
some guards are tiny and a little tricky to remove without risking stylus damage
this one covers the entire cartridge and just pulls straight down
the only complaint with this setup and we see this on a lot of debut carbons
out of the box is the anti-skate assembly
you want to put the little loop on the second groove of the tiny post on the
back of the tone arm then hook it over a wire with a loop in
it for a nice gravity-based anti-skating setup
when this was out of the box this little wire uh assembly
here was over towards the tone arm and so it was causing it to not stay on this
little notch right here where it needed to stay so i just loosened the set screw
and moved it out a little bit and everything was fine
the first track i listened to was from donald fagan's nightfly album
igy this track has a lot of varied synthesizer and drum sounds all going on
at the same time many cartridges fail to track this
properly resulting in some distortion not only did the rainier evo combo track
this fantastically surface noise was super low as well next
i moved on to the squeeze eastside story album from 1981 that has the big hit
tempted the first track though is quintessence
on this cut there are two male vocal parts
but on many systems it just sounds like one vocal is singing
the evo with the rainier made it perfectly clear there were separate
voices staying in the last century i put on one
of my favorite albums of all time eric clapton's slowhand from 1977. the nine
minute long track the core is just full of great energy with a lot
of play off male and female vocals about five minutes into it it gets
really complex with many overdubbed tracks of guitar
sax drums and vocals less expensive turntables tend to fall apart on this
cut as they just can't pull all the information out
while i've obviously heard this sound better on some much more expensive
turntables this combo did just incredibly well for
the price i have to say after about an hour of
listening to the new evo with the rainier
i felt this is one heck of an easy listen to rig
compared to more expensive tables it is lacking a very deep bass impact
and it's not as dynamic as some in the thousand to fifteen hundred dollar table
price range but geez it's one incredible bargain for
the price the sound is never harsh it tracks great
and just makes you want to pull out more records
always a winning combination this table is simple to set up
easy to listen to and you will get really involved in the music
and we saved the best part for last should you pick up an evo and really
start getting into vinyl this table has several optional upgrades
you can do to make it perform even better than it does right out of
the box if you have any questions on the new evo or any other home audio or home
theater gear be sure to give us a call chat with one
of our experts at audioadvice.com or stop into one of our raleigh or
charlotte north carolina showrooms thanks for watching if you enjoyed this
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