Rega Elys II cartridge: Is it worth the money??

Although I am a Rega dealer, I don't need to pretend that their products are competitive with the very best, but they were never intended to at their price points. I think where Rega falls down, if you want to call it that, is that Roy Gandy is committed to offering solidly engineered non-tweeky products at fair prices, and professes loudly that "tweeks", even including things like better cables, VTA adjustment, etc., are not valuable. Nor does he take any cues from the hoards of after market products designed for his decks. IMHO, he couldn't be more wrong on these last two points, but his products consequently consciously cater to the plug and play crowd, of which there are many many more than us tweeks. And for us tweeks, there are those hoards of after market products.

Getting back to the original post, at that price point I would recommend the Exact II or the EVO III or Clearaudio Aurum Beta S depending on your taste.

...and again, dealer disclosure.

fwiw, i think you get a discount if you by the P3-24 and Elys as a package, around $100 if I recall correctly.

That is true for any Rega cart/table combo.

I'm guessing that Audiofeil is a bit tired of what he perceives as ubiquitous and exaggerated claims of superiority for products that are obviously built to a low price point. Perhaps he is erroring similarly by his frequent and sometimes exaggerated claims to the contrary.

Also, I would add the Dynavector DV-20X and the Ortofon 2M Black or Bronze to the short list.

hmmm. according to mikey in his review of the p3-24, if you opted for the exact you'd lose the discount. since you're a rega dealer, i'll assume you're right and mike is wrong.

The price list in my hand says all the Rega carts except the Apheta, have discounts if bought with a table. The Elys and Exact represent $100 savings and the Bias a $45 savings.