34 Australian

ON TEST

anyone looking for a cheap turntable would be silly not to buy one. That turntable is the Pro-Ject Elemental.

I would be tempted to say the Elemental is a ‘cheap and cheerful’ take on Pro-Ject’s higher-priced vinyl-spinners, except that Lichtenegger has been able to incorporate a good deal of technology from those turntables into the Elemental, with decided benefits for its performance.

The equipmenTThe chassis of the Elemental might upset the traditionalists, but the increasing number of so-called ‘skeletal’ turntables shows that it’s not necessary for a turntable to have a full-sized rectangular base/plinth in order to deliver top-notch performance. Indeed there’s a good argument that the larger the surface area of a base, the more likely it is to pick up

Heinz Lichtenegger is the founder and managing director of Pro-Ject, and it seems that he and I have something in common. It’s

that we both cringe when we see the plastic monstrosities masquerading as ‘turntables’ that are sold to unsuspecting consumers… usually via the pages of mail-box catalogues and through low-end chain stores. Although I can rail against such turntables in print, and exhort people not to buy them, the fact is that many people still choose to do so, simply because they’re cheap.

Although Lichtenegger has also railed against the sale of plastic turntables in print, he has instead decided to address the root cause of the problem by producing a turntable that’s as low-priced as the chain store-type turntables (well, almost), but is so obviously of much higher quality that

air-borne vibrations, which is something you don’t want any turntable base to do. So the smaller the area of a base, the less likely it is to be influenced by air-borne vibrations.

The Elemental’s platter might also upset the traditionalists, because rather than being made from two different metal castings, it’s just a single piece of CNC-machined MDF, into which is pressed the spindle, so there’s no sub-platter either. I think this is called ‘keeping it simple’. It also means there’s no platter suspension of any type, so isolation is solely down to the feet underneath the turntable and, although these are rubber, they don’t provide much isolation at all, so you may have to provide this yourself, depending on where you place the turntable in your room.

Platter drive is via a rubber belt that wraps around the motor’s drive pulley and

turntable

Pro-Ject Elemental

35avhub.com.au

Pro-Ject elemental turntable ON TEST

the OM5E, and are often recommended as ‘upgrades’ when this cartridge is fitted to other turntables, I would not recommend taking this approach with the Elemental, due to the fact that the anti-skating is fixed and the OM5E has a lateral compliance of 20µm/mN, whereas most other replacement styli from Ortofon that will fit into the OM5E cartridge body have a lateral compliance of 25 µm/mN, which would require a different anti-skating force to be applied.

The fixed anti-skating also restricts your choice of a replacement cartridge, should you wish to upgrade the OM5E, because whatever stylus you chose would have to weigh exactly 5 grams and also have a lateral compliance of 20µm/mN. (Though this does mean you could ‘downgrade’ to an Ortofon OM3E if you wished, or use a stylus replacement for an OM3E on your worn records, and save the OM5E’s own, more expensive, stylus for your ‘best’ albums.)

Being that the Elemental is… umm… elemental… and almost entirely made of MDF, a wood composite not renowned for its weight, you may be surprised to hear the Elemental weighs 2.7kg. That weight comes from what is exactly that—a weight—mounted underneath the spindle in the form of a section of what Pro-Ject says is ‘artificial stone’—though it didn’t feel or look at all like stone or artificial stone to me. Lichtenegger calls this weight a ‘mass anchor’ which he says improves the performance of the turntable by ‘acting as an energy sink to prevent noise or vibration from getting into the platter via the spindle.’

As you can see, you’re getting quite a lot of kit for your $379. What you don’t get is a turntable cover… and not surprising really, considering that the cheapest optional cover Pro-Ject sells is the ‘Cover It’ at $99. (It also suits the Pro-Ject RPM 1.3/5/5.1.) It’s unlikely you’ll get a less expensive cover from any of the accessory suppliers, but remember that there’s always the option of building one yourself, or adapting a cover designed for another product or application to suit. Whatever you do, I would recommend you use a cover when playing LPs, because it prevents dust and contaminants from settling into the groove. Such foreign particles end up reducing overall playback fidelity and introducing the intruding ‘click’, ‘pop’ and ‘crackle’ sounds that, unfortunately, all too often characterise LP replay. (Of course if you only intend to play each of your LPs just the once, so you can immortalise their sound by storing them in a digital format, I guess a

Pro-Ject elementalturntable

Brand: Pro-Jectmodel: elementalcategory: turntablerrP: $379 (inc. OM5e cartridge)Warranty: two YearsDistributor: International Dynamics address: 129 Palmer Street richmond VIC 3121

(03) 9426 3600 sales@interdyn.com.au www.interdyn.com.au

• easy set-up• low cost• Price/performance

ratio

• Isolation• Dust cover• Finish

the periphery of the platter. Although the motor is a d.c. type, so it could be controlled electronically to offer multiple speeds, the circuitry required would push the price of the Elemental too high, so it’s just a single-speed motor, and speed adjustment is effected between 33.33 and 45rpm by manually moving the belt over the two-step drive pulley. The motor is fitted to the ‘chassis’—such as it is—without any apparent isolation, which is likely to be at least one reason Lichtenegger selected a d.c. motor rather than an a.c. synchronous type. All other things being equal, a d.c. motor has less intrinsic unwanted vibration than an a.c. synchronous motor and, just as you don’t want airborne vibrations transmitting through to the stylus, you don’t want motor vibrations being transmitted through the base to the stylus either.

On the Pro-Ject Elemental, that stylus is an elliptical diamond that’s at the business end of an Ortofon OM5E moving-magnet

phono cartridge, which is factory pre-mounted (using a universal system, so you could change to a different cartridge if you wanted, but see following paragraph) into an offset fitting at the end of a straight tonearm. The tonearm counterweight also comes factory pre-set and fixed into place straight ‘out-of-the-box’, but unlike some ‘fixed’ counterweights, the one on the Pro-Ject Elemental can be adjusted… though I don’t know why you would need to (unless, of course, you decide to change cartridges at some point in the future.) However, changing cartridges could be a little tricky, because the tonearm anti-skating (also known as ‘bias’) is not adjustable. In fact I could see no anti-skating mechanism at all, but according to Pro-Ject, the tonearm supposedly ‘has the correct amount of bias force for the Ortofon cartridge designed in’.

The Ortofon OM5E’s stylus is replaceable, so when the diamond wears down (as it eventually will), replacement will take only a few seconds. The correct replacement is a Stylus 5E. Although replacement styli for other Ortofon cartridges will fit into

dust cover would not really be necessary.) If this is what you want to do, you’re probably better off buying the USB version of the Pro-Ject Elemental, which retails for $449. Buy this version and you can plug the turntable directly into your computer, with no need for any other components.

The overall ‘fit ‘n finish’ of the Elemental is very basic, right down to the finishes used on the MDF, but I guess it’s better to make economies here rather than in more important areas such as the motor and bearing.

Power consumption is low. With the turntable switched off (the rocker switch is under the platter, at the front, to the right of the drive pulley), the power supply on its own draws 0.28-watts. When the turntable is operating, the power draw increases to 4.17-watts.

in use and LisTening sessionsWhereas I might normally spend some con-siderable time setting up a turntable, tonearm and cartridge (and a considerable number of paragraphs explaining the process in a review!), I spent almost no time at all setting up the Elemental.

As you can see, you’re getting quite a lot of kit for your $379. What you don’t get is a turntable cover…

36 Australian

ON TEST Pro-Ject elemental turntable

It’s really just a matter of extracting it from its box, wrapping the rubber belt around the platter and drive pulley and plugging in the external (plug-pack) power supply and phono leads. Easy. The only thing you need to watch is that you don’t get any sweat etc. on the belt, pulley or platter when you’re fitting the belt. I always have a pair of white cotton gloves on hand for belt-fitting, but you could just as easily use disposable latex gloves, so long as they aren’t the ‘powdered’ type.

For the sake of completeness, I checked that cartridge alignment and tracking force were correct, but was not surprised to find they were spot-on, not least because one of the tools I personally recommend for cartridge alignment is made by Pro-Ject itself! (The Pro-Ject Align-It.) I then checked speed accuracy and found that using my own precision strobe, it was visually exact at both 33.33 rpm and 45 rpm. (If you’d like to check the speed of your own turntable with a free paper strobe, you’ll find one at www.tinyurl.com/AHF-strobe). Although I was happy the speed was correct, later testing by Newport Test Labs showed that although the platter speed on my review sample was exact at 45 rpm, it was 0.04% slow at 33.33rpm. This difference is so tiny that you wouldn’t be able to detect it even if you were unfortunate enough to be possessed of perfect pitch.

As for wow and flutter, I’d no sooner put away the four discs I’d used for testing it in my review of Pro-Ject’s Genie 1.2 (published in Australian Hi-Fi Volume 45 No 1) than the Elemental lobbed in for review, so I pulled them out yet again: Satie (Gymnopédies), Chopin (Nocturne Op.27 No.1), Field (Nocturne No.10 in E minor) and Liszt (Légende No 1 St François d’Assise). As with the Genie, I could hear neither wow nor flutter in any of these pieces, no matter how intently I listened. And, if you can’t hear wow and flutter when listening to slow piano music, you’re never going to hear it with any other type of music. [Newport Test Labs measured overall wow and flutter at 33.33 rpm as being 0.11% RMS unweighted. At 45 rpm, the overall W&F result was 0.06% RMS unweighted. Measured individually, wow at 33.33 rpm was 0.12% (CCIR) and flutter was 0.09% (CCIR). At 45 rpm, wow was measured as 0.1% (CCIR) and flutter at 0.06% CCIR. Editor.]

When listening for rumble, I got a bit of a fright, because I thought I heard some rumble the minute I started listening. However, it turned out to be a false alarm… the rumble I was hearing was low-frequency sound caused by my next-door neighbour’s swimming pool pump getting through into the platter and thence via the stylus through to the speakers. This mishap did, however, put me on notice that—the Elemental’s ‘mass anchor’ not withstanding—you may have to pay attention to ensuring that external vibrations

do not enter via the Elemental’s three feet. This could be as simple as asking your neighbour to turn his pool pump off when you’re using the turntable or putting the Elemental on a vibration-isolating mount.

I chose the latter approach and used a custom mount I made using a slab of granite that was left over from when we installed a new kitchen bench (the kitchen guys even cut and shaped it specially for me!), but any heavy flat object will do, after which you then ‘tune out’ any vibrations by trial and error, using the different amounts and thicknesses of foam underneath the mass. I use the thick foam slabs sold by car places for use when washing your car… they’re cheap and they work great. (If your other half is worried about appearance, drape a piece of silk cloth over the slab and foam blocks before placing the turntable on top.)

So far as sound was concerned, I was very aware that although Ortofon’s OM5E is a very capable unit, it’s second-from-the bottom of Ortofon’s own range, and far from being the last word in phono cartridge technology, being fairly long in the tooth. Nevertheless, stereo imaging was good and the bass was solid and tight, if not as totally convincing as, say, an Ortofon Red. Midrange sound was well-detailed and particularly impressive when listening to smaller ensembles, rather than full orchestral works. The highs were extended, if slightly subdued, but missing the ‘shimmer’ and delicacy in the extreme highs that are characteristic of higher-performance cartridges.

I did think the sound was very slightly more defined through the first half-to-two-thirds of each LP I played, but I was not sure if the slight diminution in sound quality I was hearing as the stylus neared the end of the record was caused by the bias method used by Pro-Ject, or by limitations in the tracing ability of the Ortofon OM5E itself. Overall though, I was happy with the performance of the Ortofon OM5E and consider it an excellent match with the Elemental. [Newport Test Labs measured the OM5E’s frequency response and channel separation, which are graphed in Figure 1. The response shown extends from 20Hz to 20kHz ±3dB and is within 2dB from 25Hz to 16kHz. Channel separation was 22dB at 1kHz, improving to 24dB at 3.5kHz, but diminished to less than 15dB below 200Hz and above 15kHz. Editor.]

I can’t finish up this review without commenting on the damped stylus cuing mechanism. It’s great that it’s there, but it’s so slow! You could almost make a cup of tea in the time it takes to descend into the groove. On the plus side, it descends (and ascends) with a truly vertical motion, without any sideways ‘slippage’, so you’ll always be able to cue up accurately at exact spots on your LPs.

ConCLusionDuring the reviewing process, the Pro-Ject Elemental’s performance was good enough that I was constantly having to remind myself that it was, literally, an entry-level turntable… so entry-level that I think it’s the lowest-priced turntable I have ever reviewed. Personally, I am thrilled that it’s now available, because whenever any of my non-audiophile friends say they want to buy a budget turntable to play their old LPs, I can confidently recommend the Elemental to them, firm in the belief that it’s priced so keenly that they’ll actually end up buying one. (Even if it’s the USB version.)

The only real pity is that people who do not read this review will continue to buy those horrible plastic units, never realising that for almost exactly the same outlay they could have been proud (and I mean that literally, too) owners of a real turntable: one that will give them years of happy listening, as well as one for which spare parts will always be available, and also one on which they’ll be able to replace the cartridge and/or stylus if they so desire. Chris Croft

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Newport Test Labs

Figure 1. Frequency response (black trace) and channel separation (red trace) of Ortofon OM 5E phono cartridge fitted to Pro-Ject Elemental turntable.

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