In short? Under £1,000, the Debut Pro is one of my Top 3 turntables currently on sale. The other two are the Funk Firm Gett! and the Roksan Attessa (The Rega Planar 3 and NAD 588 are a smidge behind those). Saying that though, both of the main competitors listed here are dearer when fully kitted out so the Pro offers the best sound quality-to-price ratio at £699.

This ca $1000, handsome-but-unassuming record player proved to me what a manufacturer with decades of experience and expertise can do when designing an analog machine to a price point. The Debut PRO bowled me over with its dynamics, detail, soundstaging, spatial depth, and scale, especially with the more expensive Wellfleet cartridge. The Debut PRO made the most of every style of music I put to it. One could hope for a better mat, but the white looks cool, and changing it out is easy and cheap.

So in the end, do I recommend the Pro-ject Debut Pro? Yes, I would, because I think it is a very well built, audiophile-grade turntable that doesn’t cost insane money, nor does it require you to go to ridiculous lengths in order to simply enjoy your record collection. Is it THE ONLY turntable solution under a grand worth your consideration? No, of course not. While the Pro may be a value compared to other Pro-ject turntables, it is not an outright value leader compared to the competition. So, if you’re on the market for a manual, belt driven turntable and you have a budget of about a thousand dollars, I would put the Debut Pro on your list of turntables to consider.

Really, there’s really only one difficulty the Pro-Ject Debut Pro faces, and that’s not even of its own making. It’s simply the strength of the rivals it competes with – from the aforementioned Technics SL-1500C, yes, but also from Rega with its Planar 3/Elys 2 combination. These are fomidable rivals, not only in sound and build terms, but in the almost fanatical devotion these companies have developed in some parts of the vinyl-enthusiast public. But it’s an indication of just how successful Pro-Ject has been with the Debut Pro, though, that it can go toe-to-toe with both of these acclaimed record players and make a compelling case for itself.

It’s an excellent platform for listening to records and a well-designed table in every respect. That you can make it even better with a cork mat, different phono cartridge, and not spend a fortune — that’s a rather great option at a time when everything is more expensive and you have to watch your shekels.

The Pro is the most ambitious and capable Debut model yet. It’s right up there with the very best in the class.