Pro-Ject E1.2 turntable review: A stellar turntable that's simply hard to beat for the price

Austrian turntable brand Pro-Ject is one of the key poster-children for affordable performance when it comes to record players – and a highly deserving one, to boot. In its 35-ish years, Pro-Ject has pushed the envelope not just for good sound at a good price, but also for good style. A trademark minimalism, stripping the turntable back to its elegant essentials.

Pro-Ject has a wide range of record players to offer you, and one of them has to be the cheapest. Right now, it’s the E1.2: a re-do of Pro-Ject’s entry-level flagship, the E1, and an extremely enticing one at that. Not only does it improve heavily on Pro-Ject’s budget offering, but it elevates expectations for entry-level turntables across the board. Let’s find out how.

Features

The Pro-Ject E1.2 is, true to type, a relatively bare-bones affair, and to its credit. It’s a manual belt-drive turntable with little in the way of modern conveniences, beyond a rocker switch for powering the turntable into 33 1/3 or 45 RPM operation.

The E1.2’s two key improvements on its predecessor are a new platter, and a new supplied cartridge. The E1.2’s platter trades polymer for die-cast aluminium, making for a comfortingly weighty piece of vinyl-hosting paraphernalia that adds more stability to the playback of records. The cartridge, meanwhile, is Pro-Ject’s own design, the Pick It MM E; a conical moving-magnet cartridge with a warm sound profile, and a serious leg-up on the entry-level (but nonetheless surprisingly good) AT-3600L that shipped with the E1.

In the box, you get: the turntable itself; a lid for said turntable; a power supply; and a box of accoutrements, including the belt for the belt drive, a 45 adapter and some calibration tools to make setup as easy as possible out of the box. No RCA cables here – because the E1.2 comes pre-outfitted with a permanently-attached one. In the short term, I don’t mind this at all, but in the long term it can make dealing with a potential cable fault a little bit more arduous than it needs to be.

The built-in cable is partially a function of the E1.2’s lack of built-in phono preamp – another potential sticking point for newer turntable converts. You’ll need one (or a hi-fi amplifier with one built in) to get anything out of this; if you don’t fancy this extra little hunt, you’ll be glad to learn that E1.2 is one of three variants – the others of which offer a built-in preamp, and also trade the hardwired cable for conventional RCA sockets.

Design

The most striking thing about the E1.2, as with anything from Pro-Ject’s oeuvre, is its simplicity. The visual design is clean and uncluttered, matte-black mechanisms and an austere obelisk of a plinth signalling the E1.2 as, at once, a plainly practical utility and living-room artwork. Mine is, to coin a phrase mid-centurily walnut in finish, but you can get a much cleaner white or black variant too.

As far as setup is concerned, the Pro-Ject E1.2 is delightfully easy to get up and running – for a turntable that takes any degree of getting-up-and-running. Whether a newer arrival to the world of vinyl, or a recent convert from the cheaper, come-as-they-are automatic or suitcase turntables at the entry level, you might find this amount of assembly daunting anyway. Worry not, though; it’s as simple as wrapping a belt around a wheel and capstan, then placing the platter on top. Plug some stuff in and get it calibrated, and you’re away!

On the calibration front, Pro-Ject even supplies you with the tools necessary to get your record player set-up and playing at its best – something you don’t see with a lot of other brands catering to the sub-$/£250 price point. There’s no adjustable anti-skate, but this isn’t for lack of anti-skate at all; it’s pre-calibrated for the Pick It MM E cart, at the factory.

This might present frustrations for those hoping to make some serious cartridge upgrades in the mid-to-distant future – but when most popular carts ask for 2-ish grams of tracking force, it’s not all that much of a big deal. Besides, if you’re in a position to worry about anti-skate on an expensive new cartridge, you’re also in a position to afford an expensive, better-specced new turntable too.

Speaking of easily-forgettable nuisances, there are some other small ways in which the Pro-Ject E1.2 demonstrates its low price. For one, there’s the austere three-footed chassis, which makes the E1.2 feel a little easier to disturb than other players. A single, central back foot means you can’t lift the dust lid with one hand when you want to use it, lest the whole thing tip back and potentially dint a precious corner of the plinth. This never realistically impacts the playing of records, but it does present a minuscule vexation when you’ve your record of choice in one hand already.

For another, there’s the tonearm rest, a tastefully minimal arm with a clip on the end. The arm moves in its socket, and can sometimes pull out enough to swivel a little with the tonearm; again, two hands are sort-of necessary to keep everything where it needs to be when setting a record to play. But this isn’t a grab-and-go record player for those short of time or patience; these paltry pains can surely be forgiven.

Sound

Pro-Ject isn’t lying when it describes the sonic profile of its Pick It MM E cartridge as “warm”. There is a phenomenal weight to the lows and mids, as capably demonstrated by my turntable-testing mainstay (and rare candidate for “best album ever made”), Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf. No-One Knows is tight and controlled, despite those stacked guitars and that rollicking runaway bass. The kick is delightfully hoofy without ever losing definition, and there’s growl aplenty atop the weightier qualities of the heft on display.

‘Control’ is a great word by which to describe the Pick It MM E more generally, the cart being a great example of controlled sound reproduction in action. Transients sound natural and unforced; there’s no unnecessary reinforcement of bassy frequencies, meaning often-muddied instruments and parts come through with distinction. The drums on First It Giveth and A Song For The Dead are a rare three-dimensional delight.

The word ‘warm’, meanwhile, can be a double-edged sword, as realised by a slightly less-focused engagement with the upper reaches of the treble range. Cymbals are there and proud, but there’s a slight, perceptible high-end roll-off that has a habit of turning ‘s’es into ‘sh’es. Natural as the transient response is, it doesn’t extend up to the tinkier, tiss-ier elements of the kit.

Sometimes, though, this is to the Pick It MM E’s credit. Brighter, more obnoxious instrumental mixes like that of Mitski’s addictive runaway Where’s My Phone, from Nothing’s About To Happen To Me, benefit greatly – that lack turns into control, again. Meanwhile, Mitski’s rich, “warm” voice fully shines against an ever-crescendo-ing band threatening to break out of the record itself.

Besides which, that general preference for lower-end representation doesn’t mean the E1.2 can’t handle brightness altogether. My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless is a cavalcade of sounds, remembered more for the chaotic sound-tapestries of Kevin Shields than anything else; album opener Only Shallow is more straightforward than the album’s reputation, and exceedingly bright, from telephonic lead vocals to high-tuned snares and piercing drum overheads. All of this, rendered clearly and exuberantly (if a little “sh”-y in places).

Mitski’s bar-lounge ballad I’ll Change For You is a brilliant conduit by which to understand the E1.2 and its cartridge at their best. Those tight snare rim-shots poke up through a plucky, woolly bass; strings sear silkily atop, and Mitski’s well-controlled voice is articulated with striking, affecting presence. A smooth croon-y heartbreaker for the modern age, presented impeccably.

The E1.2’s specs with regard to wow and flutter could be better on paper, but to my ears there’s very little sonic instability to speak of. Everything is smooth and buttery, playback consistent and tonearm quite happy handling whatever record deformities my aging collection had to throw at it. I will say that the motor can be a little noisy when getting up to speed, but that it quietens down quickly enough; it could be quieter, but it’s not noticeable at any distance.

The Pro-Ject E1.2 undoubtedly wears its budget price point on its sleeve in places, but it doesn’t do so with any sense of shame. These simple mechanisms and austere design choices are made mindfully, and with pride, in service of a phenomenal-looking manual record player that just works. And really very well, at that. As far as the cheaper turntables go, it’s hard to imagine getting a better base sound out of the box from anything else.

Alternatives

The Pro-Ject E1.2 is one of three entry-level variants, the other two of which are: the E1.2 Phono, which comes with a built-in phono preamp for even more plug-and-playability (and RCA ports, as opposed to the hardwired cables of the E1.2 reviewed here); and the E1.2 BT, which features separate Line Out and Phono Out ports as well as a Bluetooth transmitter for wireless playback on any receiver of your choosing. If these conveniences appeal, you may consider paying that little bit extra to avail of them.

If adjustability and customisability are both high requirements on your list, you might look to the Audio-Technica AT-LP120XBT – a much larger, much more maximalist turntable, but one with lots of adjustability (right down to the supplied VM95E cart, which can be upgraded via a range of styli for much less than a new cart altogether).