Проигрыватели виниловых дисков — Pro-Ject Signature 10

The Signature 10 is a high-end Pro-Ject record player with belt drive, delivered as a complete deck with its own single-pivot tonearm. The Austrian company describes it as a no-compromise turntable and arm configuration whose concept mixes two schools of design - the mass-loaded deck and the floating, decoupled deck. It sits below the Signature 12.2 in the Signature family.

Key specs that matter

Two speeds, 33 and 45 rpm, are selected electronically, and a precision generator drives the motor. The alloy platter weighs 10.4 kg, carries built-in TPE damping and comes with a 405 g record puck. It turns on an inverted main bearing with a ceramic ball running on a plate, and that bearing is magnetically decoupled. The tonearm is an aluminium single-pivot design with an SME-type headshell, an effective length of 254.8 mm, an overhang of 16 mm and an effective mass of 18.5 g. Cartridges between 4 and 10 g can be fitted, helped by several counterweights supplied in the box. Its footprint is 475 mm wide and 354 mm deep with a height of 195 mm, and the net mass without packing comes to 23 kg. An external 15 V DC supply rated at 1,600 mA powers it, and standby draw stays below 1 W.

Engineering and use context

Pro-Ject builds the plinth from MDF filled with metal granulate, a mass-loading approach meant to leave the chassis free of resonance. That chassis is then separated from the supporting surface in two stages - three magnetic feet float the whole player, and TPE pillows cushion the belt-drive subchassis. The platter is diamond-cut from a single piece of aluminium, so its damping and its bearing are the second line of defence against vibration after the feet. On the arm, vertical tracking angle and mounting distance can both be changed steplessly while the deck is running, which makes fine alignment of a new cartridge a single-session job. The top surface is a high-gloss metal finish, and plinth colours listed by the maker include piano black and white lacquer plus real wood veneers in walnut, palisander, olive and mahogany.

Pairing

The fairly high effective arm mass and the cartridge weight window are the two points to check when choosing a pickup, and the stepless height adjustment copes with cartridges of differing body height. The supplied Connect it 5P-C tonearm cable, with a separate earth wire, runs from the arm base to an external phono stage, since the deck has no preamplifier of its own. No cartridge appears in the list of included items, so the buyer chooses one separately.

Alternatives

The Pro-Ject Signature 12.2 moves up to a 12 inch S-shaped arm with a removable headshell, a flywheel belt drive and a balanced 5-pin output.