What Hi Fi recently visited Pro-Ject’s new Headquarters in Austria and their manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic.
Heinz Lichtenegger CEO of Pro-Ject said that making a good turntable was all about ensuring you have the best quality materials.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems was founded in 1990 in Vienna, Austria by Heinz Lichtenegger. He was a young audio enthusiast who believed that turntables were the best and most cost effective way of listening to music in audiophile quality.
The company are now regarded as one of the largest and finest turntable manufacturers in the World and their mission is to produce the best sounding analogue components at the most competitive prices possible. The current turntable range encompasses everything from budget to high end designs targeted to key demographics and to accommodate the modern listeners unique requirements.
Pro-Ject are also heavily involved with electronics and speakers but also with the importance of true hi-fi stereo. Many modern audio systems bring the speakers very close together or into a single enclosure and Pro-Ject want to create systems with pure stereo applications and to bring back the emotional importance of music to audio enthusiasts all over the World.
Heinz believes that although he brought out his products at a time when vinyl was at death’s door and the CD was revolutionising the audio market, he felt strongly that analogue replay was the best option. He believed that the pride and sense of ownership and the interaction of playing vinyl records was something that you did not get with digital media. His first turntable the Pro-Ject 1 was produced in a factory in the Czech Republic and the vast Pro-Ject range is still made in the same factory in Litovel. However there has since been an expansion to include a large modern factory down the road.
Pro-Ject continue to go from strength to strength and although they make amplifiers, CD players, DAC’s and streamers it is very obvious that their true passion lies with turntables. In fact many of the platters on Pro-Ject turntables come from recycled vinyl records. Heinz believes they are ideal as they have heavy mass, are resonance free and have a perfect contact with the platter and clamp.
Watch What HiFi's video showing a look behind the scenes of Pro-Ject's Factory