The Project Essential III Offers Style and Substance
Our “Product of the Month” for May is the stunning Project Essential III Turntable! With a whopping 5 star review from What Hi Fi, and a £20 discount at Hifix, this is a turntable that not only looks stunning, but delivers a reproduction of your vinyl records that needs to be heard to be believed. The Essential III is available in Red, Black, and White gloss finishes.
With a beautiful gloss-finished MDF platter, the Essential III does away with the original acrylic platter that can be found in previous models, a decision that was made in order to take advantage of the acoustically neutral characteristics that MDF has to offer. This plinth is then mounted upon three anti-vibration feet, achieving effective decoupling from the surface on which your turntable is placed. Beyond the design, the Project Essential III features some truly impressive technology to further improve upon your listening experience. With a 9V motor and a new integrated grounding link, this turntable will vastly reduce any electrical interference to unbelievably low levels. This motor uses a premium, synchronous AC design that is driven by a built-in signal generator. This signal generator will ensure the turntable maintains optimum speed stability, and brings resonances down to an absolute minimum.
As if it wasn’t impressive enough already, Project has topped this intuitive turntable off with a pre-fitted 8.6″ aluminium tonearm. This tonearm has been included for its rigidity and lightweight characteristics, and features a gimbal bearing assembly in order to ensure tracking across a record is as smooth as possible; the sapphire bearings used in construction only work to improve tracking even further. A counterweight is supplied in order to accommodate the installation of a wide range of premium pick-up cartridges, allowing you to change easily whenever you wish to do so.
That being said, the Project Essential III does come fitted with an Ortofon OM 10 cartridge as standard. This cartridge has proven to be superior to the Ortofon OM 5E that could previously be found within the Essential II Turntable. The OM10 uses an elliptical profile and precision micromechanics, thus making it possible for this outstanding turntable to deliver a pristine and full soundstage, adding that extra level of impact to your listening experience. What Hi-Fi? have sung the praises of the Project Essential III, with their verdict being:
“Another budget Project turntable, another five-star review – the company simply can’t shake the habit of turning out top-class turntables…”
These are only a few in the multitude of reasons that all of us in the Hifix team have been raving about this turntable ever since it found its way to our store. Click on the link below to hear what our salesperson, Tom, had to say about it in our product review video:
Find us at: 163 Spon Street, Coventry, CV1 3BB
Visit us online at: www.hifix.co.uk
Or call: 02476 631 707
Words by Evan Boulton