Initial Impression of Carbon Debut TT
A friend of mine just bought a Pro-Ject Carbon Debut TT with an Ortofon 2M Cartrige from Music Direct for $400 with free shipping and no tax. He brought it over to my house for me to set up. We put it in my system and it is a very nice TT. It sounds at least as good as my Vintage Thorens TD-145 TT and probably a bit better.
The build quality is excellent and it has a decent platter but the felt mat is cheap. The carbon arm looks great. Overall the TT seems much more robust than the Rega RP-1.
The sound was limited by the 2M Red cartridge which is too bright sounding for my tastes and has too much congestion in the high frequencies. I had the 2M on my Thorens and it had the same issues. I am not a big fan of the 2m Red and I don't see what all the hub bub is about with this cartridge (although in all fairness to the 2M it was not broken in and we listened to it straight out of the box for about 1 hour). Other than that the sound had good air and transparency with good dynamics and detail but not to the level of my Nagaoka MP-200 cartridge, which I would have liked to mount on the Debut. Bass dug a little deeper with my Thoren's though.