Notes on Rega upgrades


I just thought I’d drop a quick post/ very mini review on some of the Rega upgrades discussed by W. Garcia in the feb/mar TAS. I have an old Planar 3 with a modified RB 300 (heavy counter weight but not one of the newer offset ones, metal end stub). I’ve also replaced the rubber feet with sorbothane footers. I just yesterday added the sheer audio acrylic platter/extreme phono matt, and the 3M damping sheets reviewed in the most recent TAS.
In my system (Vanedersteen 3’s, Classe 6 mkII preamp, Classse Dr-8 monos, and a Sumiko BPS) I found that all three of these addition made real improvements in my vinyl playback. Individually (and together) these upgrades extended and tightened my bass response, enlarged the soundstage, improved detail while simultaneously reducing glare, and improved the sense of space around instruments. My wife who enjoys music and has pretty good ears but isn’t really much of a gear geek said that she found listening to music much more involving and in fact said that listening to Dark Side of the Moon was like listening to it when she was 14 again. I just thought I’d let other Rega owners know that at least one person who paid full price for these upgrades thought they were totally worthwhile.
chanifin
What I did with my Rega P-3 (when I had it--I now have the P-9): 1. tone arm rewired with cardas wire, clips, cardas box and jacks so you can use any interconnect cable. tried many cables, settled on an Ensemble cable 2. Remove feet, used 4 sets of two Mod Squad soft shoes end to end as feet. 3. replaced target stand "wood" platform with custom-made 1/2" thick solid steel platform, totally killing vibrations. 4. replaced felt mat with audioquest sorbothane mat. Used an older benz-micro mc3a pickup. after these changes I experienced about the same perceived improvements that you have over the stock unit.
The tonearm rewire is reasonanly high on my priority list as is upgrading the cartridge. Unfortunately (or not, I enjoy what i do) I'm a PhD student in the final legs of finishing my dissertation. I work with fairly technically demanding equipment so I don't have the time or energy to deal with a tonearm rewire at this point. I'll be lucky if I get around to installing a VTA adjuster in my arm in the next month or so :).
Are you planning to rewire the tonearm next? The Incognito rewire looks pretty nice to me.

Paul Green
Interesting, but it seems a little silly to spend almosy $300.00 dollars for a platter for a table as inexpensive as the P3. Plus I would think that a platter that thin constructed in the way they've described could easily go out of true as a result of warpage. The Teres people have clearly recognized that potential (hense their very elaborate wood platter construction) while this design doesn't seem to protect against that possibility, but what do I know?
came across this obscure rega platter and other tweaks audio site. check 'em out....lotta adjectives onboard. kurt

templewoodaudio,com

(waders optional)
In my system, I noticed an improvment in the clarity and extention of the bass, but more importantly the platter contributed a better sense of space and clarity within the soundstage as well as extending the boundries of the soundstage. I could hear the improvement across the frequncy range of my system. The other thing the platter did was to reduce any residual glare. Cymbals and transients were clearer with less of an artficial sharpness to them.
Out of curiosity (I have P25) what did you notice with the acrylic platter? I have been considering the change to one. I did use a JA Michell counterweight and I really feel it made the bigest improvement of all the tweeks I have done.