The Founder of Pro-Ject Turntales Talks About His Passion

Heinz Lichtenegger is a fascinating character and visionary.He happily admits that 25 years ago he was regarded by anyone with business sense as crazy.At a time when CD's ruled and most turntable sales occurred at garage sales,he bought a factory that made them.To Heinz,making turntables made perfect sense.He says:"Turntables were getting expensive as no one was making them anymore."

Models that cost 300 Euros were selling for 470 Euros secondhand.And interestingly,customers at his hifi shop wanted to buy turntables not because they sounded better than CD,but because music was free - records were literally being given away.So he started making turntables and selling them to friends and customers.

Funnily enough,synchronicity stepped in with the fall of the Berlin Wall.Lots of factories in the Eastern Bloc were closing and converting their businesses and machinery to build high quality turntables became very cheap.He didn't just buy the machinery,he bought an entire turntable factory that was on the brink of closing.The factory was in the Czech Republic and he retained the workers who went with it.People with their skills and experience were almost impossible to find.

Pro-Ject,literally a tiny company at the time went on to  become the biggest turntables in the world.It wasn't a fluke or good luck,Pro-Ject aimed directly at the budget segment of the market and scored a bulls-eye.Heinz says:"Anyone can build a 5,000 Euros turntable but building one that costs less than 1,000 Euros is hard.That's why the Chinese copies don't work very well.The Czechs are very skilled electro-mechanical engineers and the people at the factory have over 30 years experience making turntables.It's a very hands-on job that requires skill and patience.The final alignment of the tonearm has to be done by hand and it is only females that have the delicacy of touch to do it finely enough.

As it has turned out current 1,000 Euros turntables are giving the kind of performance that in the 1980's cost 5,000 Euros.Pro-Ject produced 500 turntables in it's first year of production and many were sold in Heinz's own hifi shop.Then he struck gold when a leading hifi magazine published a comparison of 10 turntables costing less than 1,000 Euros,and the Pro-Ject,the cheapest,won.

Now,here's one from left field.In 1993,Heinz received a phone call from Alex Encel of Encel HiFi in Richmond.Alex ordered a container of turntables.Australia had just become Heinz's largest export market,then followed England,Germany,Austria and France.

Turntables now make up 5 to 6 percent of all source units sold in the world,compared with 8 percent for CD players...and the trend for CD players is rapidly declining.As mainstream music becomes about streaming compressed files from the web,there is a trend back to true fidelity again.With fine music, turntables are regarded in much the same way as a fine glass is regarded for a special wine.

And most importantly.....they're fun!

Pro-Ject builds 100,000 turntables a year and sells to 80 countries.Pro-Ject is the top-selling turntable in Australia and in other countries outsells the competition by four to one.This is truly a unique story of one man's passion and vision being realised and providing a very special experience for music listeners.

Having met Heinz earlier this year,we were amazed at his enthusiasm for creating great musical products.He spent an entire day in our store and was happy to help us understand his passion for creating a special musical experience.He explained that creating the Signature turntable - a truly special piece of kit - he didn't choose to outsource the diamond cutting of the aluminium platter.Instead he chose to buy a diamond blade cutting machine.He now uses it to machine all of his aluminium platters,achieving greater accuracy and throughout his range.To find someone with this level of passion in this day and age is truly refreshing and a very special experience.