This is an interesting story that I will bore you with.
First, I moved the 125 and went for a nicer TD150.
Brian Kearns, who is one of the finest Garrard and Thorens autorities - you can see his systems and essay at The Analog Department - contacted me and had a Mayware. He went to send it to me and found that the plastic support for the cueing and anti-skate was cracked.
No surprise really as this is a chronic problem with Maywares. He uses an SME lll on one of his backup tables and had an extra, so he sent me that one.
Funny enough, I am friends with a gent that does a lot of the machining for the Applied Fidelity turntable line as well as the Saskia turntable, and I am having a new, stainless steel, mount made up for Brian so that he can enjoy the Mayware on one of his Garrard 301s.
As to the Rega, it is a little heavy for the 150, IMHO. Others will disagree. I have seen others switch to the stiffer Linn springs, but this presents other problems. Then again, most of the arms that I was considering are for use with high compliance cartridges, which pretty much means MM. BTW, I have a Rega RB-600 on my Rega P25 and, IMHO, it does not sound anywhere near as good as the SMElll.
Steve has an interesting solution at The Thorens Department, where the springs are replaced with lengths of garden hose. Don't laugh, he is a very discriminating listener as well as running one of the finest sites devoted to analog replay. At any rate, with the hose substituting for the springs, any weight arm can be used without issue, even those, like the Rega that accomodate medium compliance MC cartridges.
I didn't want to go that way, as I really like the sound of a sprung suspension and was looking for a light arm to play MM cartridges anyway. I hope that this helps a touch.
