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See the complete review for the Pro-Ject Essential III Turntable.

Pro-Ject has a good history of making smart looking, great sounding turntables.

Pro-Ject's long line-up of turntables.

The Essential III sits in the mid-range of Pro-Ject’s long line-up of turntables and this current Essential range is comprised of 7 different models: The Essential III, Essential III HP, Essential III Bluetooth, Essential III Digital, Essential III Phono, Essential III Record Master, and the Essential III SB. Whew! For a deep dive on all the available models please visit their website for details, the model we’re focusing on is the plain old Essential III.

Phono Box Pre-amplifier

The Essential range is a decade old now, and Pro-Ject believes that the “3” hits all the right notes, so-to-speak. Enhancing this newly revamped turntable is a diamond-cut aluminum drive pulley and a resonance-optimized MDF main platter and MDF chassis. The high-precision platter bearing has also been refined and has significantly tighter tolerances than Essential II. The deck came packed with Ortofon’s OM10 cartridge to boot! If this isn’t enough, the Essential III has picked up a host of industry awards like EISA’s ‘Best value turntable’.

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The fine folks at Pro-Ject also supplied their Phono Box Pre-amplifier for this review, which came in handy as I use a Rane mixer with my Technics and don’t own a dedicated pre-amp. After my misadventures with Fluance’s nifty T85 Reference turntable, I was curious to see how the experience with an established turntable manufacturer. As luck would have it, I have the Pro-Ject set up feeding into the Cambridge Audio CXA-61 which I have on hand for review (color me lucky!), powering a pair of B&W 685 S1’s.

Project Essential3 Turntable Input

Much like Fluance’s range, there is an option to upgrade the MDF platter to Pro-Ject’s ‘Acryl It E’ Acrylic platter, said to remove static, improve bass and add more detail. This begs the question as to why not make Acrylic the standard if it’s so much better. In any case, the supplied platter is the stock MDF on my sample arriving in high gloss red which looks slick. I am impressed with the overall fit and finish of the Essential III.

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The supplied manual, well that’s another story. One which I’ll get into more detail for my review!

See the complete review for the Pro-Ject Essential III Turntable.