Upgrading Rega P9 + RB1000

Reb1208, good insights. I've never seen an RB100 and had no idea it was wired so poorly. Coax lead out??? ...

I believe that if you put a DIN plug on the Rega arm you can then use some tonearm grade pure silver wire(Audio Note U.K) and solder a direct connection to your phono stage,without using RCA plugs.This is the best thing to do apart from a complete rewire.stefanl

Soldering direct to the stage is only for the most "adventureous". This past weekend I opened up the base plug and did the ground mod- this took care of the distortion in the highs. I am not looking foward to doing more surgery. Attaching a din to the internal wire at the bass is like a 3hr nerve wrenching tourture session. If I go back in it must be the best proven option. Was thinking of drilling the arm tube near the back to let the wire come out like the VPI and Basis arms. But I decided that having these wires exposed to airborne vibration is a no-no.

Thanks to all.

Doug, my CAT SL1 Ultimate preamp has an MC phono board. Its phono gain is 46db. So mid to high output cartridges (0.35~0.8 mV) can be used. The CAT also supplies the impedence load plugs (probably 50, 100, 150, 300). But as the Ruby's recommended load is 1000~47k, I do not use the plugs. So the impedence is currently matched to 47k.

For the head amp or the stepup transformer, I agree with your opinion. They may improve the base weight and the presence of music. Thanks for your information about the Mu stepup transformer. Could you give me more comments about Mu's sound characteristics?

For the phono cable, is there anyone having experiences of rewiring of Rega's stock ones? Any significant improvement? Any risk in the modifications? My P9 + RB1000 combo has a so-called 'golden midrange glow', but the bass is lumpy and 'folded' under as Reb described.

Yhun, I didn't know you had the MC board. Sorry for the slight diversion, although 47dB gain still sounds like MM territory to me. How much gain in the line stage?

I have the Mu feeding the MM phono stage in my c-j PVll preamp, which has 47dB gain + 19 in the line stage. My cart puts out a "solid sounding" .5mv but 66dB of total gain is not nearly enough. Without the stepups I have to crank the c-j's gain control to nearly 2 o'clock, compared to 9 o'clock for line sources. This pushes the line stage tubes too hard, raises the noise floor and, well, the sound just sucks! :)

If you have to push your gain significantly more for phono than for line then I'd investigate a SU device. I haven't heard anything but the Mu so I can't offer comparisons. People who have A/B'd trannies (Arthur Salvatore) say the Mu is the best in today's market.

I know it has admirably flat frequency response, down only .5db at 20Hz, dead flat to well above 20kHz. That's probably as good as any transformer anywhere. It's dead quiet of course. I haven't heard any phasing problems, but my speakers are probably worse in that regard so it's hard to say. The Mu's integrated leadout wire and easy load resistor changing did it for me. If you're having a slow day you can read my cartridge load test results on a thread called "Shelter + BentAudio Load Test" or something like that. Have the coffee ready. :)

It sounds like your arm wire issues are bigger, but why not try the different load plugins on the CAT? Can't hurt to experiment a little.