Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Promoted as the ‘most accomplished Debut’ yet, the Reference 10 uses Pro-Ject’s familiar AC motor drive, and the superior flat-section belt seen in the earlier X1 [HFN Aug ’19], Debut Pro S [HFN Nov ’22] and XA B [HFN Jan ’25], but is the first to swap out a TPE-damped alloy platter for one machined from acrylic. Speed accuracy from the proven drive solution is good – imperceptibly slow at –0.06% and with a swift 3-4sec start-up time. Pitch stability is good too with the Reference 10 recording a peak-wtd wow of 0.03% and largely noise-like flutter of 0.05% [see Graph 1, below], the combined 0.08% falling well inside Pro-Ject’s estimated 0.16%. Rumble from the stainless steel/bronze bearing is improved over the Debut Pro S at –68.9dB (DIN-B wtd, re. 5cm/sec) while the, frankly more important, –71.9dB figure for through-groove noise is the best yet for any ‘Debut’ deck. Not unexpectedly, this result drops very slightly to –71.0dB once Pro-Ject’s 190g ‘Record Puck E’ weight adds a little extra load to the bearing and ‘couples’ the LP more effectively onto the acrylic platter. Incidentally, electrical noise is very low at –70.5dB (unwtd, re. 5cm/sec), possibly a benefit of the cartridge and arm’s balanced internal wiring.

Talking of which, Pro-Ject’s partnering 10in/254mm alloy tonearm, with carbon overlay, has an above-average 16g effective mass, suiting the supplied Pick it PRO MM with its 7.2g bodyweight and low-ish 12-14cu compliance (system resonance comes in around 9Hz). The new bearing block showed signs of play in our sample but the substantial main beam looks to be very well controlled – the main bending mode occurs a little over 100Hz and while there are secondaries at 165Hz and 335Hz, the mid and treble are very clean [CSD waterfall, Graph 2]. PM