Audio-Technica AT-LP60X vs Pro-Ject E1 2026: Which First Deck?

If you want the cheapest, simplest way into vinyl, the Audio-Technica AT-LP60X is the one to buy: fully automatic, built-in preamp, press a button and it plays. If you're willing to spend roughly twice as much for genuinely better sound and a deck you can actually grow with, the Pro-Ject E1 Phono is the upgrade that's worth it. Both plug straight into powered speakers with no extra boxes, so this isn't really a fight about convenience. It's a fight about how much sound quality you want from your first proper turntable, and whether you'd rather press a button or cue the needle yourself. Here's how to land on the right side of that line.

The single most important difference, before anything else: the Audio-Technica's cartridge is fixed and the Pro-Ject's is not. On the LP60X you can replace the worn stylus, but never the cartridge itself, and the stock stylus is a basic conical. On the E1 you get an Ortofon OM5e with an elliptical stylus, mounted on a standard tonearm, so you can upgrade it as far as you like later. That one fact shapes everything else here.

The Audio-Technica AT-LP60X

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The AT-LP60X is the turntable I recommend more than any other to people who just want to play records without learning anything first. It has been the default budget pick for years, and it earns that through sheer ease of use.

It's fully automatic, which on a turntable means more than it sounds. Press start and the platter spins up, the tonearm lifts, swings over, and lowers onto the lead-in groove by itself. At the end of the side it lifts off and returns to the rest automatically. You never touch the needle. For a nervous first-timer, for kids, or for anyone who finds the idea of manually cueing a stylus stressful, that removes the one part of vinyl people are most afraid of getting wrong.

It's a belt-drive design with a built-in switchable phono preamp, so you can plug it straight into powered speakers, a soundbar with a line input, or any amplifier, with no separate phono stage required. The preamp can be switched off if you later get an amp with its own phono input. That flexibility is a real strength at the price.

Where it's limited is the cartridge, and this is the honest heart of the matter. The LP60X uses an integrated cartridge with a conical stylus. You can replace the stylus when it wears out, but you cannot swap the cartridge for something better, because the headshell and cartridge are a single fixed unit. The conical stylus tracks the groove less precisely than an elliptical, which means it pulls out less detail and is a touch harder on your records over thousands of plays. For casual listening it's perfectly enjoyable. For anyone who later catches the upgrade bug, it's a dead end: the only way up from the LP60X is to replace the whole turntable.

The tracking force is fixed too. There's no counterweight to set, which is part of what makes it foolproof, but it also means you can't fine-tune it or fit a cartridge that wants a different weight.

Who it's right for: absolute beginners on the tightest budget, anyone who wants genuine press-and-play automation, casual listeners who play a few records a week and don't intend to chase sound quality, and anyone buying a first deck for someone who'd find a manual turntable intimidating. It does exactly what it promises and nothing more.

The Pro-Ject E1 Phono

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The Pro-Ject E1 Phono is what the AT-LP60X buyer graduates to, except a lot of people would be better off starting here if the budget allows. It's hand-made in Europe and built to a completely different brief: sound first, features second.

The cartridge is the headline. It ships with an Ortofon OM5e, a genuine moving-magnet cartridge with an elliptical stylus, mounted on a real tonearm. The elliptical profile sits more accurately in the groove than the LP60X's conical, and the difference is immediately audible: more detail, cleaner vocals, better separation between instruments, and gentler treatment of your records. Because it's a standard mount, you can upgrade it later to an Ortofon OM10, OM20, or a 2M Red as your ears and system develop. You're buying a platform, not a sealed box.

The tonearm is a proper 8.6-inch aluminium arm with a cueing lever, and Pro-Ject pre-set the tracking force and anti-skate at the factory, so it arrives ready to play without an alignment protractor. Speed changes are electronic: a button switches between 33 and 45 RPM, so unlike many belt-drive decks you never have to lift the platter and move the belt by hand. It also has the same trick as the Audio-Technica where it counts, a built-in switchable phono stage, so it plugs straight into powered speakers or any line input with no separate box. That built-in preamp is exactly why I'd point an LP60X cross-shopper at the E1 Phono specifically, rather than the base E1 that lacks one.

What you give up is automation. The E1 is a manual turntable. You lift the cueing lever and lower the needle onto the record yourself, and you lift it off at the end of the side. It takes about three plays to feel natural, and most people end up enjoying the small ritual of it, but it's worth knowing that the press-and-walk-away convenience of the LP60X is gone. There's also no Bluetooth and no USB on this version.

The platter is a lightweight ABS design, which is the main concession to the price, and the deck as a whole feels more considered and substantial than the plasticky LP60X without being heavy.

Who it's right for: anyone whose priority is sound, anyone willing to spend more on their first deck to avoid outgrowing it within a year, anyone who likes the idea of upgrading the cartridge down the line, and anyone who doesn't mind cueing the needle by hand. It's the deck you keep for years rather than replace.

Head-to-Head

Which One Should You Buy?

Buy the Audio-Technica AT-LP60X if:

Your budget is genuinely tight and the lowest price matters most. You want true press-and-play automation and the thought of manually cueing a needle puts you off. You're a casual listener who'll play a handful of records a week and has no intention of chasing sound quality. You're buying a first turntable for a child, a parent, or anyone who'd find a manual deck stressful. You want vinyl with the least possible learning curve, and you're at peace with the deck being a fixed endpoint rather than a starting point.

Buy the Pro-Ject E1 Phono if:

Sound quality matters to you and you can stretch to roughly double the price. You want a deck you won't outgrow in a year, with an elliptical cartridge you can upgrade later. You're happy to cue the needle by hand once you've got the hang of it. You're building a first proper hi-fi and want the source component to be genuinely good. You like the idea that this is the start of something you can improve, not a sealed unit you'll eventually bin.

Buy neither if:

You specifically want Bluetooth or USB. The base versions of both these decks have neither, so if wireless streaming or digitising records matters, look at the best record players UK guide for options like the Bluetooth AT-LP60XBT. And if you want a manual audiophile deck but can push the budget higher, the best turntable under £500 guide covers the next tier up.

The Honest Case Against Each

Against the AT-LP60X: the fixed conical cartridge is the ceiling, and it's a low one. You will hear its limits the moment you compare it to almost any deck with an elliptical stylus, and there's no way to fix it short of buying a new turntable. The lightweight build and fixed tracking force are the price of the automation. If there's any chance you'll fall properly for vinyl, the LP60X is the deck you'll be selling on within a year, which makes its low price less of a bargain than it looks.

Against the Pro-Ject E1 Phono: it costs roughly twice as much, and for a genuinely casual listener that money buys sound quality they may never push their speakers hard enough to hear. The manual operation is a real adjustment for someone expecting a turntable to do the work, and a few buyers find cueing by hand more fiddly than they bargained for. There's no automation and no wireless. If all you want is background music with zero effort, you're paying for capabilities you won't use.

What to Avoid

Don't buy a suitcase or all-in-one player like the Crosley Cruiser as a cheaper alternative to either of these. They look charming and cost less, but their ceramic cartridges track at three to four times the correct force and will permanently damage your records. Both decks here exist to keep you out of that trap. If you've read this far, you've already made the right decision to avoid them.

And don't buy the AT-LP60X assuming you can upgrade the cartridge later. You can't. People regularly buy it expecting to drop in a better cartridge the way you can on a Pro-Ject or an Audio-Technica LP120X, then discover the cartridge is fixed. If an upgrade path matters to you at all, that fact alone points you at the E1 Phono.

Finally, don't pair either deck with a cheap mono Bluetooth speaker and expect hi-fi. Both deserve, at minimum, a decent pair of powered bookshelf speakers. The turntable can only ever be as good as what comes after it.

Owner Community Consensus

Across r/vinyl and the turntable forums, the advice to first-time buyers choosing between these two is remarkably consistent, and it usually comes down to one question: how seriously do you think you'll take this?

AT-LP60X owners overwhelmingly describe it as the deck that got them started painlessly. The automation gets specific praise from people who were anxious about damaging records, and nobody regrets it as a cheap way to find out whether vinyl is for them. The recurring caveat, repeated almost as a warning, is the upgrade dead end: a large share of long-term owners say they wished they'd spent more at the start once they realised the cartridge couldn't be improved, and many move to a better deck within a year or two.

E1 owners talk about it as the deck where vinyl clicked. The most common observation is how much better the OM5e elliptical sounds than the conical cartridges on cheaper automatics, and how reassuring it is to know the cartridge can be upgraded rather than capping the system. The honest counterpoint is the loss of automation, which a minority of buyers genuinely miss, and the higher price, which puts it out of reach for some first-timers.

The summary that comes up again and again from people who've owned both: the LP60X is the deck you buy to try vinyl, and the E1 is the deck you buy when you already know you're in. If you can afford to skip the first step, most owners say you should.

FAQ

Is the Pro-Ject E1 worth twice the price of the AT-LP60X? If you care about sound, yes. The Ortofon OM5e elliptical cartridge, the real adjustable tonearm, and the upgrade path put it in a different class. If you're a genuinely casual listener who wants the cheapest, simplest way to play records, the AT-LP60X does that job and the extra money may be wasted on you.

Can I upgrade the cartridge on the AT-LP60X? No. The LP60X has a fixed integrated cartridge. You can replace the worn stylus, but you cannot fit a better cartridge. The Pro-Ject E1 uses a standard-mount Ortofon OM5e you can upgrade to an OM10, OM20, 2M Red and beyond, which is one of the main reasons to choose it.

Do either of these need a separate phono preamp? No. Both the AT-LP60X and the E1 Phono have a built-in switchable phono stage, so you can plug either straight into powered speakers or any amplifier with a line input. The E1 Phono variant specifically is the one to buy for this reason; the base Pro-Ject E1 does not include a preamp.

Is the AT-LP60X fully automatic and the Pro-Ject E1 not? Yes. The LP60X starts, cues, plays and returns the tonearm at the touch of a button. The E1 is manual: you lower and lift the needle yourself with the cueing lever. The E1's manual operation is part of how it achieves better sound, but it's the main thing LP60X buyers need to be prepared for.

Which is gentler on my records? The Pro-Ject E1. Its elliptical stylus, set at the correct tracking force, sits more accurately in the groove and wears records less than the LP60X's fixed conical stylus over thousands of plays. Both are far gentler than any suitcase-style player.

What I'd Buy Today

If money is tight or you genuinely just want the simplest possible way to play records, buy the Audio-Technica AT-LP60X. It's fully automatic, it plugs into anything, and it's an honest, enjoyable way to start. Just go in knowing it's a starting point you can't upgrade.

For most people who care even a little about sound, I'd spend the extra and buy the Pro-Ject E1 Phono. The Ortofon OM5e elliptical cartridge alone is a clear step up, the tonearm is real and upgradeable, and the built-in preamp means it's just as easy to plug in as the Audio-Technica. It's the deck you keep and improve rather than the one you replace. If you can stretch to it, it's the better first turntable by some distance.

**Get the Pro-Ject E1 Phono on Amazon →**

**Get the Audio-Technica AT-LP60X on Amazon →**

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