Pro-Ject

EVO AS & EVO AS Premium Tonearms

£999 and £1,549 RRP, respectively

Austrian company Pro-Ject lays claims to being the world's largest turntable manufacturer. And when you consider that its factory in the Czech Republic churns out around 200,000 decks a year, it has some justification in saying so. Founded by Heinz Lichtenegger over three decades ago, the company boldly cut its teeth with turntables. It has since branched out to manufacture a wide range of electronics – from phono stages to DACs and streamers.

As the vinyl revival continues apace, we see ever more turntables, tonearms, and cartridges being launched—and so it is with Pro-Ject's new EVO AS and EVO AS Premium pick-up arms. These S-shaped designs come in 9-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch versions, with the latter two adding a slight price premium—but it's the 9-inch variants that we're looking at here.

For the purposes of this review, I mounted them on a Pro-Ject X8 turntable, which made swapping arms quick and easy, aided by the fact that these arms also sport an SME-style removable headshell – a bit of a rarity these days. This enabled me to just swap the headshell and cartridge from one to the other. Using the X8 also gave me the opportunity to compare these EVO variants to the standard 9-inch 9CC EVO tonearm that is supplied fitted to the X8, which, when sold separately, costs around three-quarters of the basic EVO AS tested here.

UP CLOSE

So, let's look at what makes the new tonearms tick. They provide an upgrade path for Pro-Ject turntable owners, to which the UK importer Henley Audio offers a trade-in deal on your old arm. Central to the EVO designs are the super-high-mass gimbal bearings that are said to use ultra-low friction inverted Swiss ABEC 7 stainless steel tips running on cardanic ball bearings mounted inside a substantial aluminium or steel bearing block. The designs also move away from the carbon fibre construction of the CC range as Pro-Ject has found that sound quality can be better with certain cartridge pairings if an arm-tube with greater effective mass is used – hence the S-shaped aluminium tube design.

Pro-Ject X8 with 9CC EVO arm

The EVO arms also incorporate cooper or silver wiring depending on the model, a damped aluminium counterweight design and the aforementioned CNC-machined, SME-style detachable aluminium headshell. Anti-skating is provided not by a spring but by the old-fashioned weight on a string method, which Pro-Ject says ensures it is accurate at both the inner and outer grooves.

On the EVO AS Premium you get silver headshell wires, a more massive steel – as opposed to aluminium – bearing block, a sturdier inner tonearm bearing design with tips running on the highest grade of ball bearings, silver wiring within the arm itself and a stainless steel counterweight running on a high-precision thread with two TPE damping rings. Pro-Ject says this provides better stability and a finer range of tracking force adjustment.

Both arms are supplied with a choice of two counterweights. This is because Pro-Ject has found that the closer to the pivot point the counterweight is when the correct tracking force is applied, the lower the inertia, and it says that the sound is improved when inertia is kept to a minimum. The user simply chooses whichever counterweight allows it to be closest to the bearing housing when the correct tracking force is dialled in for the cartridge being used.

The arms are well-packed and come with everything you or your retailer need to set up and install them. The base that comes with the arms has the same fitting as the 9CC EVO that's fitted as standard to the X8 I used as a test bed. And so when you upgrade, it is quite feasible to leave the original base in place and simply slot either of the EVO AS arms on review here straight in. Obviously, if the finish is different, and these arms come either in black or a very eye-catching shiny chrome-like finish achieved by highly polished aluminium, you would want to swap them over.

So that I could have the same cartridge fitted to the 9CC EVO and the two EVO AS tonearms, I put the fitted Ortofon to one side as I had two Goldring Eroica cartridges to hand that would facilitate easy comparisons. As mentioned already, the turntable used was Pro-Ject's own X8, and this was used through an Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister integrated amp with an MFA Reference step-up transformer and a pair of Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SMG10 speakers.

THE LISTENING

My first step was to compare the 9CC EVO that comes with the X8 with the new EVO AS tonearm. A superbly recorded album that always provides a good workout for any piece of equipment is Larry Carlton's Discovery. I cued the cartridge into the track A Place for Skipper, and from the first few bars, there was no doubt I could hear more fine detail in the drum and percussion lines with the EVO AS. I could better appreciate how Carlton played each note on his guitar – how it was shaped and the power he was putting into it. The bass line was deeper, tighter and more tuneful and had more 'growl' and rhythmic impetus, which meant the track moved along with greater pace and purpose. There was also a more solid soundstage with better differentiation of all the instruments. The difference was a large one and very musically worthwhile.

A great singer and one of my all-time favourite guitarists was up next, namely George Benson. I played the track No One Emotion from his excellent 20/20 album, which I have seen him perform live on several occasions. The EVO AS immediately captured my attention with the way it drove this fast-paced track along so much more convincingly than the standard 9CC EVO tonearm, which seemed to slow it all down. The bass line was tighter and more tuneful, keyboards were better defined, and Benson's vocals were more open and more expressive – more human. The track really came to life.

Linda Ronstadt's Lo Siento Mi Vida, from her wonderful Hasten Down the Wind album is an excellent recording where her voice is packed with power. Not only did the EVO AS convey bags more emotion in her voice, but it also captured her amazing energy. And, while on the standard arm, it could sound like she was shouting on the loudest notes; the EVO AS was smooth as silk. It also conveyed the guitars on the intro much better, with more insight into how each note was played and how their fingers slid along the strings. Her voice always tends to send a tingle down my spine, and this new tonearm certainly helped to achieve that. Is it worth another quarter of the price of the standard arm? Absolutely.

The EVO AS Premium is better still. Playing It Didn't All Come True from jazz genius Ben Sidran's superbly recorded Bop City album, I heard a noticeably cleaner and more balanced sound. The bass line moved better, and I could easily follow each note. Vocals were more emotion-packed, more articulate and open, while piano had extra presence and power with fast runs of notes, which were conveyed with less blurring. And when the drummer hit the skins like he really meant it, the Premium conveyed the dynamics better. Hi-hat cymbals were also more detailed and delicate, with more of the drummer's technique laid bare as he joined with the bass player to drive the track along at breakneck speed.

Next, I reached for Three Chords and the Truth by Van Morrison. On the track Dark Night of the Soul, the AS Premium was sharper and more focused and conveyed more detail and power in his vocals—it had more growl, intensity, and range. The track is quite a simple one in terms of instrumentation, but the Premium married the drums, bass, and other elements together in a way that gelled better. No doubt, it is a worthwhile step up from the EVO AS.

Similar differences were heard when I tried the Luther Vandross track So Amazing, as covered by saxophonist Gerald Albright on his Just Between Us album. The Premium conveyed his prowess on alto sax with greater insight into his skills, and when he really let rip, it handled it better with no glare or harshness. The bass line was tighter and easier to follow, while drums had more leading-edge crack and explosive power.

THE VERDICT

This duo of arms from Pro-Ject proved to be a significant improvement over the standard 9CC EVO arm that comes with the X8 turntable. The EVO AS thus represents great value, as you get an appreciable upgrade in sound for only a little more outlay. The Premium version takes what the EVO AS does and refines it further to achieve an altogether more balanced, articulate and musically coherent sound. With part-exchange options on offer on your existing Pro-Ject arm, they are well worth investigating.

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