Pro-Ject - Why Tonearms Matter

One of the most crucial components of a turntable, the tonearm, not only affects but also shapes the sound in a specific way. To get the sound they desired, Pro-Ject conducted extensive listening experiments using various bearing types, tonearm materials, and cartridge combinations.

From Pro-Ject's recent research they had found that:

• Damped counterweights and super high mass bearing gimbals help to dampen tonearm resonances.
• A conical tonearm tube design guarantees that resonances are traveling to the bearing block and also reduces the moving mass of the tonearm/headshell.
• Single-piece tonearm tubes increase the stiffness and also reduce the mass on the end of the tonearm and increase sound transparency.
• Correct tonearm and cartridge matching and the resulting cartridge/tonearm resonance are exceptionally critical for clean tracking and accurate controlled bass reproduction.
• For low compliance cartridges, you need tonearms with high effective mass, or in other words, tonearms made of aluminium alloys as opposed to carbon.
• High-purity conductors have a significant positive influence on low-level cartridge signals, so Pro-Ject use the highest purity copper and in the premium super clean silver wiring.
• High mass flange design is crucial to fix the tonearm securely to the turntable.
• Massive tonearm holder reduces the overall resonances of the whole tonearm.
• An assortment of different counterweights is necessary to balance the cartridge correctly. The counterweight needs to be as close as possible to the bearing for increased stability and low tonearm inertia.
• A precision arm can only be made with the highest level of diamond knife machinery, allowing you to work with tolerances of 1/1000 mm.

Based on these 10 points, Pro-Ject designed the NEW EVO Tonearm series. The central idea is the super high mass gimbals with the ultra-low friction 4-point Swiss-made bearing assembly.

Pro-Ject have found the best technical solution: 4-pin-point cardan bearings. They are very stable and have low friction to guarantee a beautiful soundstage and clean tracking.

If you have medium to low compliance cartridges, getting a better sound than from our EVO CC full carbon arm, as is featured on all our high-end products, is very difficult.

However, for low-compliance cartridges it would be best to have more effective mass. For example: Pro-Ject's carbon-aluminium or aluminium s-shape arms.

The outcome of these findings is a four-strong tonearm range, each available in 9”, 10”, or 12” effective tonearm lengths.

Each model in the EVO tonearm range focuses on the idea of super-high-mass gimbals with ultra-low-friction four-point bearing assemblies. Pro-Ject uses four pin-point cardan bearings due to their stability and very low friction, and the result is clean tracking across the whole record surface. All models boast sturdy tonearm supports, damped counterweights (in multiple sizes), liquid-smooth lift/lower mechanisms and fine adjustments for VTA and azimuth.

High-Gloss Finishes:

As standard, all EVO tonearms are available with metal parts finished in matte-black paint. However, for an additional charge, you can substantially upgrade the aesthetics of your turntable and buy one of the high-gloss (HG) finishes. For £450.00 with the CC and CA models or £550.00 with the AS models, you can upgrade to a hand-polished HG finish, a professional process that takes 6-8 hours to complete per tonearm.

How To Buy:

Pro-Ject turntables across the premium X-Line and RPM Line ranges feature EVO CC tonearms as standard.

The new EVO tonearms mean customers can now choose to upgrade their new turntable purchase with a CA Premium, AS or AS Premium equivalent for the cost difference between their turntable’s standard tonearm and their selected tonearm upgrade.

Henley Audio completes the installation before it sends out the deck, so there’s no manual work required on the customer’s part.

A similar upgrade is also open to all existing Pro-Ject turntable owners, where you can trade-in your current 9”, 10” or 12” tonearm and save on a new, improved EVO model.

Finally, users with non-Pro-Ject tonearms can also trade-in any other 9”, 10” or 12” tonearms and receive 30% off the SRP of their chosen EVO tonearm. Further, Pro-Ject can also supply high-quality mounting flanges for many common high-end turntables. In cases where the part is unavailable, Pro-Ject can make a custom flange to suit the required measurements, so no turntables are out of reach for the new EVO range.