Pro-Ject The Classic Evo

Pro-Ject Audio Systems is very proud to present for its 25th anniversary a concept of turntable alongside which Heinz Lichtenegger started his turntable career close to 40 years ago.
The first turntables Heinz sold in the  ́70s all had a similar classic look. Famous brands used this compact, simple and elegant  ́frame ́ design, established by manufacturers in the  ́50s and  ́60s.
"In my first year as a hifi dealer out of the petrol station of my mother, using her trade license, I sold 50 Thorens 166 MK 2. In a town of 2,000 people, I made everybody a hifi believer. Later I expanded to some Linns, Aristons, Heybrooks and so on. Today Pro-Ject is the leading company for hifi stereo turntables and sooner or later I simply had to produce what I loved originally loved."
Pro-Ject tries to sell not only to the audiophile community, but to music lovers. These people want great sound from a simple-to-use product, which is always working. Therefore we changed the old principle of spring-loaded subchassis designs, which often had been a hassle to adjust, to make the sound really perfect.
As with our famous Debut we wanted create an easy-to-use  ́plug & play ́ product, but with better sound due to bet- ter isolation. Thanks to the modern damping materials TPE (Thermo Plastic Elastomers) we are able to design a very effective subchassis construction. Isolating the platter and tonearm from the resonances of the motor and main plinth is the aim.
The second drawback for most of the old designs was the platter. The casted platters were all heavy,which is good for speed constancy and low wow and flutter, but suffered very much from ringing effects which again caused colouration of the sound. The platter of The Classic is precisely machined out of a special aluminium alloy, again with TPE included, which offers special damping abilities. The subplatter / main bearing construction we use is a similar system as on the Debut. It's hardened steel, bronze-bushing, teflon-bearing mirror results in the very smooth low noise running of the bearing.
The main difference to the Debut bearing is the tolerances, which are lower by a factor of 10 and therefore more precise (0.005%). Especially the subplatter is a very sophisticated part which is accurately machined and guaran- tees very good isolation between bearing noise and the platter itself.
TPE is a family of modern damping materials which can be tuned to damp resonances at specific frequencies. So any TPE we use is different and specially designed for the material which it should damp!
THE FEET
As we did not want to suggest that the customer always needs perfect audiophile turntable supports, we decided to use damping feet which are a very good compromise to suit most of customer environments.
For sure these feet are height adjustable. We wanted to create a turntable with sophisticated sound abilities, but easy to use and to install, in a small and at- tractive classy looking package that includes a dustcover - all for a reasonable price.
We are sure that it will generate a lot of interest and happy hours of listening for many many music lovers!
The turntable is available in walnut, rosenut and eucalyptus.
THE TONEARM
The radical, newly-designed Classic Tonearm is the result of 25 years of experience in mechanical construction. The tonearm tube is made out of a sandwich of carbon and aluminium: carbon for stiffness and speed, and aluminium for better damping. The cardan bearing assembly with its pin-point Zircon bearing provides ultra-low friction.
A new expensive Japanese base-ball-bearing allows a better lead of the tonearm wire and increases the free move- ment of the arm. The counterweight incorporates a TPE damper which allows us to reduce the amplitude of the tonearm cartridge resonance frequency by 50%.
As is typical for Pro-Ject (and absolutely not standard at that price range), we offer also azimuth and VTA adjustment to use a variety of cartridges. Different counterweights for cartridges up to 25 grams are available as an option.

The Classic comes with a Ortofon 2MSilver.
The Classic SB comes with built-in Speedbox and Ortofon Quintet Red.

Specifications:
Drive principle: belt drive