The Breaker Times

When you consider the audio gear you need to make a decent setup for playing vinyl records, we’re typically talking about component systems that consist of a turntable, an amplifier, and a set of speakers. The excellent variety of powered speakers and Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connectivity nowadays is also giving us more options than ever to spin records, too, but that’s a topic for another day.

We can (and do) discuss the minutia these hi-fi components till we’re blue in the face. But if you’re just getting into vinyl and are like, “Nuts to that that, just give it to me in an all-in-one neat package, and make sure it doesn’t suck,” then the brains at Pro-Ject Audio Systems might have your number with its Juke Box E1 Record Player with Receiver.

The Austria-based company kindly sent me the Juke Box E1 to test out. The turntable is an $800 deck with stereo receiver and phono preamp built in that’s ready to be connected directly to your favorite wired speakers. Or you can opt for Pro-Ject’s bundle kit that was sent to me, which comes with a set of the company’s Speaker Box 5 bookshelf speakers that run $350 on their own, but $1,200 as part of the set (if you can find it) — everything you need is included; just add vinyl.

Pro-Ject’s combo record player is a solid all-rounder system with an above mid-level turntable and feature-rich amplifier geared toward those who want component-like sound quality in a smaller package without the hassle of sourcing and combining separate components. It’s also a pretty good value when you consider that building that separate system would cost the same or more.

I’ve spent dozens of hours playing records and streaming music on the Juke Box E1, and while it does have its plusses and minuses, here are my thoughts.

Setup

Aside from a bit of setup, the Juke Box E1 is ready to go in minutes, and I was pleased to discover that it did not, in fact, suck. All-in-one record players don’t have the greatest reputation. They’re usually cheap, targeting kids and entry-level users, they sometimes come disguised as a suitcase or old-timey radios, and usually sound like hot garbage. The Juke Box E1 is not one of those.

Having reviewed the Juke Box E1’s sibling, the Pro-Ject E1 turntable, I knew what to expect from the Juke Box’s setup. It’s a manual belt-driven turntable that needs to have its belt installed on the platter (which is easy). Otherwise, the cartridge is aligned and balanced at the factory, so you shouldn’t have to do anything outside of connecting it all up.

But just in case, everything you’d need to make any of these adjustments is included in the box (I’d still recommend grabbing a digital tracking force gauge, though). The bundled Speaker Box 5 bookshelfs that came with my review unit also came with their own speaker cables with banana plugs preinstalled, which connect easily to speaker posts at the back of the turntable and to the speakers. If you happen to be adding your own set of speakers, we’ve got a handy tutorial on how to install banana plugs to raw speaker wire you should check out.

After installing the Bluetooth antenna and plugging the Juke Box into power, the system is ready to go.

Design and features

The Pro-Ject Juke Box E1 is clearly based off the clean and simple design of the Pro-Ject E1, with a few key differences. For starters, it’s a bit thicker because it has an amplifier built in that doles out a respectable 50 watts per channel into 4-ohm speakers, which is nothing to sneeze at and will easily fill a small-to-medium sized room.

Its speaker posts on the back accommodate a single set of speakers, and there’s a small multi-function digital display on the top-right of the plinth that you use to toggle between the Turntable, Line-in, and Bluetooth sources. The volume/selection knob on the front of the plinth is perfectly functional, and the turntable also comes with a basic remote which, once I started using it, made me wish all turntables had one. With it you can adjust volume, select sources, turn on/off the amp’s loudness button (more on that later), and (excellently) tweak treble and bass from the listening position. Lastly, underneath the front left of the plinth are two discreet switches: the 33 and 45 RPM speed selector and the main power switch.

In addition to the Juke Box E1 housing an amplifier, it also includes a decent built-in Pro-Ject phono preamp and phono-out RCA port should you prefer to bypass its amplification and run it through your own external system, like a set of powered speakers. Additionally, if you have an external phono preamp and/or integrated amplifier you like to use, you can connect to it through the deck’s line-level RCA output. Or you can do the exact opposite and actually use the Juke Box as an amplifier and connect an external audio source like a CD player or (gasp!) another turntable to it via its line-in port.

Or you can even connect a Bluetooth source, like your phone or computer, to the system to stream music from a streaming service like Spotify (sorry, no lossless or hi-res codecs, unfortunately). These jack-of-all-trades characteristics make the Juke Box E1 system attractive for longevity and compatibility with a lot of other components you either have or might get.

As a turntable, the Juke Box E1 benefits from Pro-Ject’s experience and pedigree as a top-shelf deck maker. It features an excellent Ortofon OM 5E cartridge, anti-resonant ABS polymer platter (the same as on the E1), and aluminum tonearm with a removable (and upgradable) headshell and cartridge.

Its sound-dampening adjustable feet help keep resonance at bay, and it comes with a dust cover that’s a bit stiff and pushes into the Bluetooth antenna when you open it, but that’s not a big deal. The slick-looking turntable weighs just over 11 pounds and comes in piano black, white, and red finishes.

If you do happen to get your hands on the bundle kit with the bookshelf speakers, they’re not bad for their $350 value, although you can probably do better for not much more, like perhaps a set of Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 bookshelfs for $450. Compact and lightweight, the Speaker Box 5s tuck in nicely on a media unit or shelf, and they come in finishes to match the Juke Box E1 (as well as in a satin walnut). The two-way speakers feature a 1-inch silk-dome tweeter, a 6-inch fiberglass cone woofer, and a rear bass port.

Sound and performance

Before I begin, I have to first disclose that my initial round of testing was done using the Speaker Box 5 bookshelf speakers that come with the Juke Box E1 bundle that Pro-Ject offers. As you’ll read from the review below, the Juke Box E1 (as with the E1 turntable I have also reviewed) takes a bit of coaxing to get it to sing. But after spending a fair amount of time unsatisfactorily tweaking with the Speaker Box 5s, I found the speakers lacking in dynamics and clarity, and unforgiving when adding any volume, and I cannot recommend them. They sound better with quieter music, such as folk or jazz, but for anything with a lot of distorted guitars, things fall apart in my experience. I switched to my own pair of familiar Wharfedale standmounts that I have used to test countless turntables, and things immediately improved. The review below was done with those speakers.

My listening experience with the Juke Box E1 was, unsurprisingly, not dissimilar to the E1 turntable. I didn’t love its sound from initial setup. With the bass and treble set to flat and the Loudness button disengaged, the overall sound was a bit flat and underwhelming. But on the bright side, the system sounds well-balanced and clear, and has some surprises in store.

With a little coaxing of the bass and treble adjustments, and a fair bit off comparing the sound with and without the Loudness option engaged, the good news is that depending on your preferences, you can absolutely find a sweet spot, and I appreciate that you have the option to play around like you would with a receiver. I like a little more shimmer in the highs and a bit more low end, so my sweet spot ended up being a combination of Loudness turned on, which required the bass level to be turned down to just one notch below half, and the treble just a bit above half.

In this configuration, favorites such as Radiohead’s OK Computer and The Beta Band’s The Three E.P.’s sounded dynamic, spacious, and spot-on. I even threw on my daughter’s copy of Chappell Roan’s Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and reveled in its soaring vocal and playful pop glory.

Alternately, you can go without the Loudness feature and boost the bass and treble up to your liking, but just remember that engaging the Loudness from this point, especially when listening to aggressive guitar-driven music like Black Sabbath and things can get pretty muddy, boomy, and generally messy (the Speaker Box 5s actually clipped), even with a solid set of speakers. Either configuration is six-of-one and a half-dozen of the other, though, but the good news is that you can choose which you like and lock it in.

The Bluetooth input paired to my computer held its own, too, when listening to tracks from Spotify (not that I expected it not to). And even if a bit lacking in definition when compared to vinyl, I didn’t have to tweak the EQ to compensate. It was also nice to not have to switch to a different system or Bluetooth speaker to stream music — having it all-in-one was indeed handy, but it would be nice if the Juke Box E1 supported better Bluetooth codecs like aptX Adaptive or aptX HD.

Should you buy it?

The benefits of an all-in-one solution like the Juke Box E1 are: for $800 you get an excellent receiver and turntable combination from one of the best brands in the business; you’d be hard-pressed finding a separate receiver and turntable combo of this quality for the same price or less; and this setup will take up less space on your media center than two bulky units.

For my money, the Juke Box E1 combo is best gotten on its own, without the speaker bundle, because I think that a much better pair of speakers can found if you’re willing to spend a little extra on them, and I think this system deserves it.

Overall, once dialed in and pushed through a good set of speakers, the Juke Box E1 sounds fantastic, its replaceable/upgradeable turntable parts ensure that it’ll grow with you and last for a long time, and with its Bluetooth connectivity, you’ve got yourself a diverse system, even if your vinyl collecting phase runs its course.