Two years after I began writing for SoundStage!, I decided to get a turntable. I wasn’t interested in using it to review other turntables; I simply wanted another option for enjoying music, especially because I was seeing a growing number of LPs in the music stores I frequented. Most importantly, though I grew up listening to cassettes before graduating to CDs, my parents always had a record player in the house—from my earliest memories, vinyl was always around.

Having decided I wanted a turntable of my own, the first deck I coveted was a Pro-Ject Xperience. My desire was based largely on Pro-Ject’s reputation as a company that manufactured good-sounding turntables in Europe for a reasonable price. The other reason was purely superficial: I loved its appearance. Until then, I’d never seen an acrylic ’table before, at least not one that looked like the Xperience. To call it striking seems a disservice.

Funnily enough, I landed on buying a Thorens TD 160 HD, a turntable that couldn’t have been more different than the Pro-Ject. Whereas the Xperience would cause heads to turn in any room, the TD 160 HD was a comparatively drab affair, rather somber in its black and dark-gray tones. Furthermore, the Xperience’s platter sat on a solid plinth, whereas the TD 160’s platter and tonearm were mounted to a board that sat on top of springs.

I’ve never regretted buying the TD 160 HD, and I’m still using it today. Regardless, my memories of buying the Thorens resurfaced when I received an email from Gordon Brockhouse, SoundStage! Network’s managing editor, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing a “very pretty” new acrylic turntable from Pro-Ject. That deck, the XA B ($1499, with pre-mounted Pick it Pro Balanced cartridge, all prices USD), is the subject of this review. I’ll never know if it’s a sonic successor to the Xperience, but it’s undoubtedly an aesthetic one.

Description

Building turntables from acrylic is as much a functional as an aesthetic choice. Owing to its high density and low stiffness, acrylic helps minimize vibrations that would ultimately find their way to the stylus. As Rega founder Roy Gandy so succinctly described it, a turntable is a vibration measuring machine, and the goal of any design is to minimize extraneous vibrations. Using acrylic to construct the plinth and/or platter is one way to approach that goal.

As mentioned, Pro-Ject has been making acrylic record players for many years. In their current lineup, the Austrian brand offers the 6PerspeX, a deck with an acrylic plinth that’s been in production for over 15 years. In fall 2023, they released their limited-edition Perspective Final Edition turntable, a tribute to the 6.9 Perspective, Pro-Ject’s first acrylic turntable, which was introduced in 1999. The updated version combined an acrylic plinth with a subchassis mounted on three adjustable springs. Production was limited to 400 units, and it sold out in weeks.

Motivated by the success of the Perspective Final Edition, Pro-Ject decided to introduce a new acrylic model in 2024. When the Pro-Ject XA B was first announced to members of the audio press, Pro-Ject CEO Heinz Lichtenegger wrote a few words describing some of the material choices made when designing it. He explained that a turntable is like a speaker, insofar as all parts matter and must work together. Beyond selecting parts, a great deal of fine tuning is necessary to make it actually sound good.

What surprised me was Lichtenegger’s acknowledgement of how difficult it is to work with acrylic, or more specifically, to balance its attributes with the other components of the turntable. Acrylic has high internal damping, which should make it ideal for constructing a device whose purpose is to curtail vibration. However, overdamping can make a turntable sound too dry, something Lichtenegger said Pro-Ject had confirmed through measurements and listening tests. Pro-Ject once built a version of their RPM 9 deck using acrylic for both the chassis and platter, but despite looking great, it didn’t sound good, he admitted.

For the XA B, the company chose more traditional materials. Hence, only the plinth is acrylic, while the platter is a 3.7-pound piece of cast aluminum and fitted with a ring of thermoplastic elastomer (TPE), a synthetic rubber, around the outer circumference on its underside. This is intended to damp resonances and help decrease speed variations.

Interestingly, the one-piece 10″ tonearm is also constructed from aluminum. For a company that packages carbon-fiber tonearms with decks costing less than the XA B, this surprised me, since a carbon-fiber arm is an attractive selling point. However, Pro-Ject simply preferred the sound of the aluminum tonearm to the carbon-fiber one, and thus chose the less-exotic material for this ’table.

The tonearm pivots on an ultra-low-friction cardanic bearing featuring four stainless-steel tips that Pro-Ject claims to offer accurate tracking and good stability. Small details such as a TPE-damped counterweight have trickled down from the company’s more upscale offerings. The TPE damping decouples the counterweight from the end of the tonearm. Azimuth and vertical tracking angle are fully adjustable to optimize cartridge alignment. There is an antiskate mechanism that employs a small weight on the end of a fine thread dangling from the back of the arm. The skating force changes as a tonearm travels from the lead-in groove to the center of the record, and Pro-Ject says their simple antiskating mechanism compensates for this.

Like all Pro-Ject turntables, the XA B is a belt-driven design. The belt wraps around a glass-reinforced polymer subplatter that runs on a stainless-steel bearing with a brass bushing, both manufactured to tight tolerances. The belt attaches to a motor shaft whose speed is electronically controlled using a button on the upper-left side of the record player. I missed having the speed control on the top of the turntable where I’m used to seeing it—until I realized how much doing this would have compromised the clean appearance of the plinth.

The XA B outputs a balanced signal through a five-pin DIN connector at the base of the tonearm. Since most people don’t have balanced phono stages, the XA B ships with a Connect it Phono E 5P/RCA phono cable terminated in RCA connectors. When I learned I’d be reviewing a balanced turntable, I contacted Fernando Januario, product manager at Gentec International (Pro-Ject’s Canadian distributor), and asked if he’d send me a balanced cable for the review. I own Pro-Ject’s Phono Box DS3 B balanced phono preamp, so I was equipped to take advantage of the XA B’s balanced capabilities. Fernando was a step ahead of me, and had already included a compatible cable with the review unit.

I was initially disappointed that the five-pin DIN connector was at the base of the tonearm rather than on the backside of the plinth, where it’s situated on most other decks, but here again this was intended to keep the plinth as tidy as possible. In order to guarantee I didn’t bend one of the pins, I actually got underneath the turntable the first time I plugged the phono cable in so I could see that I was aligning it correctly.

Until now, my understanding had been that only moving-coil cartridges could be used in a balanced configuration, because they’re inherently balanced; so, I assumed I’d be sent a moving-coil cartridge with the XA B. I was wrong. Enter Pro-Ject’s new Pick it Pro Balanced moving-magnet phono cartridge. The Pick it Pro Balanced was developed in conjunction with Danish cartridge specialist Ortofon and is said to be the first of its kind. The last Ortofon moving-magnet cartridge I heard was a 2M Bronze that shipped with the Thorens TD 1500 ’table that I reviewed last year. That combination sounded incredible, so I was eager to hear another moving-magnet cartridge—this one balanced, no less—from the Danes.

The wall-wart plug that powers the XA B houses a rather cheap-looking switching power supply. However, the magic lies inside the turntable, where a precision DC-driven AC generator creates a new sine wave to provide clean power for the motor. In this case, appearances were deceiving.

One feature I liked far more than I expected were the three height-adjustable feet on which the XA B rests. Each foot consists of three parts. The uppermost section is threaded to permit height adjustment, while the aluminum base gives a solid footing. However, it was the middle decoupling section that caught my attention. This has slight lateral movement in any direction, and while I wouldn’t describe it as squishy, because it isn’t compressible, it helps to isolate the XA B from vibrations transmitted through the surface where it sits. Sometimes the footers on speakers, electronics, and turntables seem like afterthoughts. These ones don’t.

A black felt mat as well as the Record Puck E are included with the turntable. Once I remembered to use it, I enjoyed having the record puck, if only because I liked the idea of securely coupling the record to the platter. I can’t say the same for the mat. I realize that some people swear by felt mats, but from a purely functional perspective I found it abhorrent to use. From its penchant for attracting dust to its tendency to stick to my records as I lifted them from the platter, the appeal was lost on me. If I were buying the XA B, I’d purchase another mat and leave the felt one in the box.

Weighing 13.2 pounds and measuring 5.1″H × 18.1″W × 13.4″D, the XA B is fairly compact while still feeling reassuringly solid. With its acrylic plinth and black platter, tonearm, motor, and feet, I found it every bit as striking as the Xperience had been when I first saw it so many years ago. Looking through the acrylic plinth at my hand underneath was like looking through polished glass. Its clarity was pristine, and if you want to keep it that way, you’ll need to wear gloves (which are also included) whenever you handle it. A soft cloth for dusting the cover and wiping away fingerprints is essential.

System

The XA B replaced a Thorens TD 160 HD turntable equipped with a low-output Sumiko Songbird moving-coil cartridge mounted on a modified Rega Research RB250 tonearm. It was connected to a Pro-Ject Phono Box DS3 B phono stage using Pro-Ject’s Connect it Phono DS 5P/XLR cable. The DS3 B was powered by a Pro-Ject Power Box S3 Phono outboard power supply and was linked to a Bryston B135 SST² integrated amplifier using Kimber Kable Tonik interconnects. The Bryston was used to power a pair of Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G speakers, to which it was connected using a pair of Nirvana Audio Royale speaker cables. Electronics were plugged into an ExactPower EP15A power conditioner.

Sonics

Initially I began listening using the included Connect it Phono E 5P/RCA unbalanced cable, before swapping it with the Connect it Phono DS 5P/XLR cable so I could hear how it sounded balanced. Relative to the unbalanced connection, the XLR cable seemed to provide a lower noise floor, so I spent the remainder of the review using it. However, even with the unbalanced connection, the XA B is a commendably quiet turntable, so if you don’t have a balanced phono stage, don’t let this stop you from considering this deck. Plus, Pro-Ject’s Phono Box S3 B, which I raved about last year, presents an obvious and affordable upgrade path if you decide to experiment with a balanced configuration in the future.

As I spent time with Pro-Ject’s XA B, it became apparent that if I were only allowed two adjectives to characterize what I heard, those words would be control and clarity. As I reviewed my listening notes, they were littered with these and other similar descriptors.

This was exemplified on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue (Columbia CS8163), where it was evident the XA B wouldn’t embellish anything just to make it sound bigger or to draw attention to it. For example, the impact of the bass on “So What” was palpable, conveying the instrument’s size and its ability to move a lot of air. But it absolutely wasn’t overblown. I’ve heard this track sound warmer and more enveloping on other turntables, but that’s not where the sound characteristics of the XA B lie. The Pro-Ject was precise in its delivery, and owing to its clean sonics and quiet backdrop, it was a champion when it came to presenting a coherent, well-sorted stage.

I was able to get a sense of the large acoustic space inside Columbia’s famed 30th Street Studio, the former church where this legendary 1959 recording was made. The tone of Davis’s trumpet was clear and vibrant, though not as rich as the sound of the saxophone, which appeared to originate just beyond the outer baffle of the left speaker. The crystalline play on the cymbals, coming from the drum kit beyond the outer baffle of the right speaker, helped create a wide stage of commensurate depth in front of me. This music has a pulse, and the energy of the musicians communicated by the Pro-Ject was unmistakable.

On conductor Paul Paray’s acclaimed recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 in C Minor with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and organist Marcel Dupré (Mercury Living Presence 028948526017), the orchestra was spread across a wide stage that expanded to the outer edge of each speaker. Through the XA B, each orchestral section was clearly outlined and played against a quiet background that served to make it distinct. The organ sounded powerful, and conveyed a good sense of weight. Everything about the XA B was well controlled, though, so I didn’t hear undue emphasis or bloat. It sounded clean, and it resolved detail well enough to create the illusion of a performance in my room.

Moving to another album recorded in the late 1950s, The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco (Riverside OJC-035) is an electrifying performance, and as a bonus, it sounds great too. Through the XA B, I again heard a broad stage populated by precise outlines of each member of the quintet, including Julian Adderley’s younger brother, Nat, on cornet. The up-tempo opener “This Here,” described by Julian as “a jazz waltz with all sorts of problems,” really swings, underscored by the metallic shimmer of the cymbals and propelled by the rocking piano. What makes this performance so special is that the energy on the stage is incredible, and that clearly transmits to the audience, who seem to be enjoying the show almost as much as the band performing it. The Pro-Ject sounded clean and faithful to the pressing. The upright bass and drums had impressive impact, but there wasn’t any additional weight to exaggerate their size. The Adderley brothers’ combination of alto saxophone and cornet had such a vibrant character that on “Spontaneous Combustion” I felt compelled to turn up the volume, because the energy was so infectious.

Listening to the title track from Aerial Boundaries (Windham Hill Records WH-91032), the XA B sounded as clean as Michael Hedges’s fingerpicking. The notes coming from the strings of his acoustic guitar were quick and incisive. The XA B was neither forward nor laid-back, but responded quickly to dynamic swings in the music. The guitar sounded warm and full, perhaps a touch larger than it would in real life, aided by the reverb that can be heard around it, most notable in its deepest notes, making the track sound more spacious. Aerial Boundaries is a great-sounding recording, and the XA B was a neutral platform for revealing what makes it special.

“Hunter” from Björk’s Homogenic (Björk Overseas Ltd./One Little Indian Ltd. LC 00309) is a multilayered musical odyssey, and through the Pro-Ject I couldn’t help playing it with the volume dialed up. In typical Björk fashion, there’s a lot happening on this track, blending a plethora of electronic effects, deep bass, rapid-fire drum sounds, and an assortment of strings that all provide the backdrop for Björk’s distinct vocal stylings and articulate delivery. “Hunter” offers a veritable wall of sound, and through the XA B it was enormous and powerful, emerging from a grand stage with an impressive sense of depth. With its superb clarity and high degree of resolution, it was easy to tease apart the individual elements that went into building this song—such was the turntable’s impressive transparency.

Similarly, the Pro-Ject’s clarity was revealed in both the sparkle of the piano keys on Tori Amos’s “Mr. Zebra,” from her 1996 album Boys for Pele (Atlantic LC02982), and the trademark intimacy of her vocals that make them a focal point of her songs. On “Caught a Lite Sneeze,” the percussion sounded weighty and authoritative, adding a sense of scale while bringing some space to the track. The sound of the drums was nicely delineated, and the XA B’s effortless clarity made it a cinch to locate everything happening in the music. For its part, the XA B didn’t really do much of anything, allowing the recording to speak for itself with little editorializing. As I spent more time with it, I found myself having little to say about its character, as I focused more on how its neutrality left almost none of itself on the sound.

Comparison

I pitted the XA B against my long-term reference ’table, a Thorens TD 160 HD ($2900) fitted with a low-output Sumiko Songbird moving-coil cartridge ($899). As I explained earlier, these decks showcase different design approaches, with the Pro-Ject featuring a solid plinth and the Thorens boasting a suspended platter and tonearm that helps isolate the record from external vibrations.

Cueing up Miles Davis’s “So What” on the Thorens proved interesting. Most notably, I found it was unable to match the sparkle I heard from the Pro-Ject. For example, the cymbals coming from the right speaker had more shimmer through the XA B, and the overall presentation came across as cleaner and leaner. I think part of this was due to the generally rounder sound of the TD 160; the Thorens traded some of the Austrian deck’s precision and sharp focus to achieve its fullness. For example, the tone of the alto saxophone was richer on the German turntable, and the upright bass had more weight.

Herbert von Karajan’s famed 1963 recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 with the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon 138 804) yielded similar results. The Pro-Ject was more precise, with sharper images spread across a wide stage where each section of the orchestra was “visible” at the front of the room. The urgency of the first movement, spelled out clearly in its famous opening notes, was readily conveyed by the Pro-Ject. Here again the Thorens traded some of the XA B’s precision for a richer sound that made the Berlin Philharmonic sound more powerful and imposing.

On “A Fond Farewell” from Elliott Smith’s From a Basement on the Hill (Anti- 86741-1), the Pro-Ject’s clean demeanor clearly resolved the sound of Smith’s hand moving up and down the fretboard of his acoustic guitar. Likewise, it was easy to hear how hard he was playing the chords. The Pro-Ject had a commendably low noise floor, helping to pull out a lot of detail in the recording. Relative to the XA B, the Thorens again produced a rounder sound, imbuing the instrument with a touch of warmth that was absent through the Pro-Ject.

By the time I’d finished swapping the turntables, it was obvious that the XA B more than held its own against the TD 160 HD—which is impressive, since it costs less than half as much. While the Thorens was detailed, it lacked the Pro-Ject’s precision, and whereas the Pro-Ject tended towards a cooler character, the Thorens sounded warmer.

Conclusion

This is the fourth Pro-Ject turntable I’ve reviewed, and I confess that I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Although its clean, neutral demeanor embodies Pro-Ject’s house sound, it’s the XA B’s intriguing design that sets it apart from those other models. Even when it’s not spinning records, it’s a conversation piece, and it’s certain to elicit attention even from non-audiophiles. For $1499, anyone buying an XA B will have the pleasure of owning a turntable that can likely hold its own sonically against anything at its price point, and, as I found in my comparison, quite a bit higher. However, they’ll also have the pleasure of purchasing something that is almost certainly going to look better than much of the competition. Don’t get me wrong: Pro-Ject’s XA B is first and foremost a great performer, and that’s the main reason you should add it to your list of decks to audition if you’re shopping anywhere around and even above this price point. The cherry on top is that it looks stunning as well, proving that sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too. Enthusiastically recommended.

. . . Philip Beaudette
philipb@soundstagenetwork.com

Associated Equipment

• Speakers: Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G
• Phono stage: Pro-Ject Audio Systems DS3 B with Pro-Ject Power Box S3 Phono outboard power supply
• Integrated amplifier: Bryston B135 SST²
• Analog source: Thorens TD 160 HD turntable, Rega Research RB250 tonearm, Sumiko Songbird moving-coil cartridge
• Speaker cables: Nirvana Audio Royale
• Power conditioner: ExactPower EP15A

Pro-Ject Audio Systems XA B turntable with Pick it Pro Balanced cartridge
Price: $1499
Warranty: Two years, parts and labor

Pro-Ject Audio Systems
Margaretenstrasse 98
A-1050 Vienna
Austria

Email: info@project-audio.com
Website: www.project-audio.com

Canadian distributor:
Gentec International
90 Royal Crest Court
Markham, Ontario L3R 9X6
Phone: (905) 513-7733

Website: www.gentec-intl.com

US distributor:
Fine Sounds Americas (formerly Sumiko Audio)
9464 Hemlock Lane North
Maple Grove MN 55369
Phone: (510) 843-4500
Fax: (510) 843-7120

Email: service@sumikoaudio.net
Website: finesounds.com