Pro-ject Debut Carbon woes, regret, and acceptance.

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My first NEW turntable - fresh out of the box - hum in left channel. Took a chance and never sent it back, figured the combined wisdom of the internets could not fail me (plus I think I recycled the box). Many rubber grommets, quarter turns of motor screws, replaced cables, swearing, frustration, and regret started me down a path of craiglisting whatever vintage TT I could find that looked interesting to replace this lemon. I think I have had about 8 turntables since then. . .
And so this thread adds to the knowledge people can gain from the internet. I wonder what lessons different people will come away with. For my own part, I've only heard Pro-Ject turntables, whether in a person's home or at a showroom, that were set up by local dealers, and all of them worked flawlessly.

Another interesting item to me was reading that this was the OP's first NEW turntable. I never gave much thought to this, but maybe buying used is a more common occurrence these days. I'm old enough, and perhaps foolish enough, to have bought several new turntables over about a 40-year span: BIC 960, Garrard GT55, Thorens TD146, Linn LP12, Linn LP12 Cirkus edition, Stanton STR8-80X, Well Tempered Record Player, Denon DP-300F, Rega RP3. That's a lot of turntables, but buying them all was fun and made sense at the time. Sounds like the eight additional turntables the OP has acquired since the Debut Carbon have been fun, too.
 
And so this thread adds to the knowledge people can gain from the internet. I wonder what lessons different people will come away with. For my own part, I've only heard Pro-Ject turntables, whether in a person's home or at a showroom, that were set up by local dealers, and all of them worked flawlessly.
I've always wondered what the phrase "set up by local dealers" meant. :confused:The local dealer who sold my benefactor my PDC was completely sold on the turntable out-of-the-box, but *I* had to rebuild the suspension system and rebalance the motor to get rid of the mechanical hum. Even then the deck still had a 310Hz mode that was excited with high tonearm acceration. I would have had to remake the turntable from scratch to get rid of it.

As it was, I felt that I had made a couple of hundred dollars worth of improvements, gratis. I guess it was worth it just to gain some insight.

A distinction has to be made between "Pro-Ject turntables" and this particular, inexpensive offering, the Debut Carbon. The higher-end Pro-Ject decks might be wonderfully consistent examples of quality control and performance. The PDC isn't.
 
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Project appears to be taking the opposite model the Japanese used to market their turntables. The Japanese low end tables exhibited a good deal of quality control on their low end/entry level models as their midfi and high end tables with the belief that customers would continue to purchase their brand as they became more financially able to afford the midfi or higher models. For most companies the entry level models are their bread and butter sellers and with pleased customers the hope is they will move up the line to their pricier models. Maybe it's just me but after being dissatisfied with the PDC I don't think I'd be looking to buy another Project table at any level after experiencing the PDC. If this is another quaterly Project sux thread than their just might be a grain of truth to it if it keeps surfacing by so many dissatisfied buyers.
 
Mine has been flawless for 4 years. You should have been smarter and not recycled the box.
I was quite the audio neophyte at the time - I figured spending $400 was my guarantee of a flawless experience and product. In fact, I was not even aware of AK at the time, just took the advice of a hi-fi employee and bought sight unseen. Imagine my horror when consulting the internets after experiencing these problems (fresh out of the box) and finding page after page on Google with folks with the same symptoms. Really learned my lesson there and never buy anything these days without thoroughly researching it. The folly of youth...
 
Rediculous comment, on other forums, people love the Project Turntables and tons of other companies are made by Project also, my sons is a beautiful unit, looks nice, feels quality, Carbon Arm is really attractive and his works perfectly, no hum, nothing to complain about.

I went through the same crap you did and I agree with everything you said about that turntable, utter pieces of junk.
 
Rediculous comment, on other forums, people love the Project Turntables and tons of other companies are made by Project also, my sons is a beautiful unit, looks nice, feels quality, Carbon Arm is really attractive and his works perfectly, no hum, nothing to complain about.
If you went through the same thing that myself and others have gone through you might feel the same way. I also am referring to my project debut carbon esprit sb that I owned. Also to add, I had the worst experience with projects customer service or should I say there non customer service. I'm sure yourself as well as many people have lost faith in a product due to very bad experiences with the product and business. For the people that are enjoying the ones that work, I'm happy for them, however I take back none of what I said other than I'll change it from there all pieces of junk to most of the project debut carbon esprit sb are pieces of junk.

Audiofreak71
 
I've been in the market for a turntable lately and I was trying to decide if I wanted the Pro-ject DC Carbon or pick-up one of the Essential II's that I saw for $199.
Glad I saw this thread. Been doing some more research and I think I'm gonna keep looking some more.
Jeff
 
On giving this more thought to me it looks like the Project Carbon is aimed at the first time turntable buyer who has never heard a turntable in their life and has no gauge to go by and would figure this how all turntables sound. They could probably best be described as a casual listener with a handful of records used mostly as decorating props/conversation pieces in their home/apartment. Rare to ever complain as seen in all the positive reviews on Amazon.
 
My first NEW turntable - fresh out of the box - hum in left channel. Took a chance and never sent it back, figured the combined wisdom of the internets could not fail me (plus I think I recycled the box). Many rubber grommets, quarter turns of motor screws, replaced cables, swearing, frustration, and regret started me down a path of craiglisting whatever vintage TT I could find that looked interesting to replace this lemon. I think I have had about 8 turntables since then and have settled on a Pioneer PL-540 for the time being (about to start re-habing a AR-XA so maybe even the Pioneer will get replaced). Whilst de-coupling the PL-540 from the setup to put on a Empire 2000E/III I just picked up, I decided to pull the DC off the basement shelf and see if anything could be done - since I had a freshly repaired Yamaha CR-800 to listen to it on, figured now was a good time.

Problems - same hum, unacceptable surface noise from the O Red (like sandpaper), a audible motor knock, and it also seems to generate its own static electricity: even with the cork mat you can hear the static building up as the record progresses. You can continually discharge the static buy touching the spindle, like a low-rent kindergarten plasma globe.

Conclusion
- what a giant piece of shit. I can't believe retail is $400 on these albatrosses. Just prior, I had set up a Sony PS212 someone gave me with a AT PROIIE that was just lying around and it sounds so much better that this object of unwarranted acclaim. My PL-540 was $75 for reference, same for the AR-XA.

But at least the Debut Crap opened up the world of vintage turntables to me and I can't say I have regretted the path. But I still have this brick I would be too ashamed to sell to anyone.

Maybe I can put a large plant on it.

Alas, if you search this forum using google you would have found many complaints about the entry level pro-jects through the years...
 
If this is another quaterly Project sux thread than their just might be a grain of truth to it if it keeps surfacing by so many dissatisfied buyers.
I found this forum ten years ago and the Pro-ject owner complaints go back as far so I think we've more than passed the threshold of implausibility.
 
My neighbor was admiring my analog rig and mentioned that he still had his turntable from the 70s. I said to break that sucker out and we'd get it going again.

He showed up at my house with an SL-1900, Technics first direct drive automatic, $179.95 original price ($770 today). A deoxit treatment on the switches and pots, unsticking the cueing, and general lube had it up and running, and it sounds excellent with the 440mlB he put on it. We also recapped and re-cabled later. This thing will be running for generations with a little maintenance.

So you can tell where I stand on the vintage vs. new debate. I think you have to spend way more than $400 on a new table.
 
I've always wondered what the phrase "set up by local dealers" meant. :confused:The local dealer who sold my benefactor my PDC was completely sold on the turntable out-of-the-box, but *I* had to rebuild the suspension system and rebalance the motor to get rid of the mechanical hum. Even then the deck still had a 310Hz mode that was excited with high tonearm acceration. I would have had to remake the turntable from scratch to get rid of it.

As it was, I felt that I had made a couple of hundred dollars worth of improvements, gratis. I guess it was worth it just to gain some insight.

A distinction has to be made between "Pro-Ject turntables" and this particular, inexpensive offering, the Debut Carbon. The higher-end Pro-Ject decks might be wonderfully consistent examples of quality control and performance. The PDC isn't.
Set up by dealer is exactly that. My dealer, with an AK member that is part of his team, took my turntable and checked everything on the table to make sure all was in spec, according to what the table and cartridge should be set to. Once done, it was hooked up in the showroom and listened to by me and the dealer to verify all was good. That's why I go back there and also have my turntables tuned up yearly by him. Makes all the difference IMHO
 
Really? That's all you're taking away from this?


Yes, it is. This is a rolling grip. All Pro-ject tables are bad, then the peanut gallery chimes in with 0 experience with the table. I have one, and have enjoyed it greatly.
 
Yes, it is. This is a rolling grip. All Pro-ject tables are bad, then the peanut gallery chimes in with 0 experience with the table. I have one, and have enjoyed it greatly.
Maybe you missed those who chimed in who did own a specific table by project and had numerous problems with it and the company itself, I myself am one of the ones who tried hard to make it work but in the end had to let it go. I'm truly glad you got a good one. Project could be a much better company if they had better QC and acknowledged when they have a problem that arises with the tables that numerous people had problems with. With that said I hope you enjoy many years with your table.

P.S. I look at this thread to be informative for those possibly looking at purchasing a specific project table and for them to learn from people's experiences, not to bash the name with zero experience.

Audiofreak71
 
No I did see those with actual experience. I also see the usual suspects with 0 experience whom always jump on. It's all good. I will continue to enjoy my table.
 
I'm going to disagree here and say that Project does not deserve any support from the audio community due to their continued mfg of known problematic tables and the total lack of customer and dealer support to remedy the issues with these tables. Project preys on the most inexperienced segment of the audio market selling them defective tables. Maybe Project will get the message if you stop buying any and all of their tables.
 
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