In February 1990, when most people thought the days of vinyl were numbered, a successful Austrian retailer and distributor took his first trip across the Czech border to visit a factory in Litovel, near Prague. Heinz Lichtenegger was looking for a decent turntable for his customers, but it had to be cheap. The mass-market players that the formerly state-owned factory had churned out weren't suitable. But when Heinz spotted a well-made single-play turntable designed back in the 1970s, he realised it was the basis for what he needed. Within a year he'd set up a collaborative venture and got the Pro-Ject PI into production, and once the vinyl revival gathered momentum Pro-Ject's turntables sold in unprecedented numbers. And last year, the company celebrated its first two decades with a limited-edition re-run of that first model, the P1-2011.
展开▼
