¡Hot-Rod your Rega!

The entry-level Planars are wonderful turntables that sound utterly excellent for the price. They're also infinitely tweakable, allowing you to get more for your money than you ever thought possible. The RB250 and RB300 arms allow a huge amount of room to grow, and if you're willing to put some time and effort into it, you can end up with an arm rivaling an SME IV, or the like. Origin Live in the UK figured this out some time ago and has been making money bringing peoples' arms up to their full potential. In the world of vinyl, physical changes can be the difference between night and day in sound reproduction. Some maintain that a fully modified RB250 is even better than a modified RB300!

Here are places where the Planar 2 and 3 can be improved:

Mechanical:

• Lack of VTA means you can't optimize the cartridge alignment. VTA is perhaps the only alignment that one can get absolutely right (truly mimicking the record cutter geometry or modifying the sound to personal taste), so there is no excuse not to have at least some form of rudimentary VTA adjustment.
• The felt mat somewhat muddies the sound. It also gets ridiculously dusty (especially if you have a pet) and annoyingly sticks to the record when changing sides. Some prefer the warmer sound it produces at the expense of detail, but I prefer more bright, detailed sound and tight bass to complement my somewhat warm amplifier.
• The motor is not well-decoupled from the plinth. Worst in the NAD clone - it is attached with double-sided foam tape.
• The counterweight assembly is junk. A screwed-in hollow end stub with counterweight attached by a spring-loaded nub (RB250) is a nightmare for bass control and damps out the precious detail the monocoque armtube is capable of producing. Similarly, the RB250 counterweight is simply rides on concentric elastomer rings that grip the end stub. The resultant loss of stiffness is the same. The effects of this are huge! Stiffening up these end parts is probably the most noticeable improvement for the sound of Rega arms.
• Some think the glass platter may be a tad bright. Easily replaced by an acrylic platter, which I find far more neutral than the fuzzy mat.
• Along the same vein, the table could benefit from a record clamp. While the spindle is far too flimsy for compression-type aftermarket clamps (Michell, or the like), the bearing can easily handle a heavy weight. Any sort of cylindrical weight makes great improvements in the timing of music, and adds mass to the platter assembly.

  Electrical:

• The interconnect cable is abysmal. Not even gold-plated. It is standard Radio Shack variety, and is permanently connected to a DIN-configured cap, to which the tonearm leads are soldered. No cable experimentation allowed here.
• Internal wiring scheme leaves much to be desired. The ground line is shorted to left signal ground. While this eliminates the ground wire, it creates a direct path for noise injection into signal ground, which the signal uses for a reference. Furthermore, at the headshell there are unnecessary solder joints between the clip wires and internal wiring.
• The stock tonearm wire is itty-bitty and too delicate. It has only a few strands and does not sound quite as good as many other wires that are available.
• The cartridge clips are not very tight, are made of pure unprotected copper (oxidizing within several months), and are soldered to the tonearm leads. Oxidation can kill signal transfer, and, once started, spreads easily to other exposed metal parts. Better signal transfer can result from tighter connections, and a crimp joint is often better than a solder joint.

  Miscellaneous:

• As always, a better cartridge will make your world happier. Rega arms can track a LOT of cartridges, including really good ones.

Most of these are minor, and can be expected on a table in this price range. However, if improved upon, each of these - except maybe the motor unless you're really creative - can make a very noticeable improvement to sound. Origin Live does make a replacement DC motor, but I'm skeptical about its accuracy, as its feedback control system I hear is somewhat flaky.

My modifications

My NAD 533 is now living with a good friend of mine, as I've acquired a Gyrodec, but it was a trusty workhorse in my system for many years. I made a number of changes to my NAD. The list is below:

• Complete rewire
• RCA termination at armbase
• Origin Live structural modification
• High mass (1.9kg) acrylic platter
• High mass (0.75kg) aluminum record weight
• VTA adjuster
• Motor decoupling via sorbothane sheet (a la Rega P2 motor mount style)

One of the most major changes one can make to the Rega is a complete tonearm rewire as per Frank Meeussen's Hot-Wired Rega (unfortunately his internet link is now gone). I really like being able to switch around interconnects and have the table as a discrete unit, so I omitted the fixed interconnect and used RCA's mounted to the plinth. I used Discovery Cable to replace the stock wire (they use this stuff in very high-end tonearms) and terminated them with Van Den Hul clips. A super-shiny Vampire ground lug adds a nice finishing touch. I dumped the two rubber grommets in the spindle since the 5 wires do not fit through them. This diagram shows the electrical connections. Cost was 20 bucks for 8 clips, $24 for 8ft of multicolored wire, $8 for the ground lug, and $3 for RCA's. I got most of the stuff from the Parts Connection, then a division of the ritzy Canadian hi-fi company, Sonic Frontiers. They closed their doors a few years back but have reopened as PartsConneXion and carry most of the same stock as the old store. Here are some photos of the final rewire job: profile view | top view

A few tips that may help for your rewire:

• Operate on the arm with the end stub and counterweight off. You can see inside the shaft and tell what's going on. Also, locking the armtube down is common sense.
• You can remove the rubber plug at the headshell with just your fingernails. You might cut it if you use a knife.
• There is a small plastic cylinder that is shoved in the center of this rubber plug. When it's in, it locks the position of the wires. Your life will be much easier when threading the new wires if you remove this first.
• Crimp the cartridge clips instead of soldering them. This is mechanically and electrically sound and avoids excess mass in the signal path. You can crimp without a crimper - just use a nice pair of needlenose pliers like those found on a Leatherman. Crimp the back part around the insulation first, then position the fine wires and crimp them in.
• Most people don't think you can resolder or replace the ground if it gets pulled out, hence people always run a ground wire all the way to the headshell if they accidentally lost the ground. Avoid having that extra ground wire rattling along the length of the armtube by putting it back where it was pulled out from. Simply using a long, sharp solder tip (like the conical tip on Weller Marksman irons) you can go from the back of the arm through the stub hole and carefully heat up the joint above the bearings to re-attach the wire. It helps to hold the armtube pointing down between your legs to get the proper angle.
• Give the wires several counter-clockwise twists so that they don't mess with anti-skate or smooth bearing operation.
• Radio Shack silver solder should be good enough. Extra silver in the alloy increases melting temperature and doesn't make a big enough difference in conductivity to warrant 50 bucks for a spool of something like WBT.
• If you're using RCA's, make sure they're bolted solidly to the plinth. You want that mount to last several years of connecting and disconnecting wires.

Before the complete rewire operation, I had performed a more limited modification to replace the cable. This is much simpler than a complete rewire, and can be done by most anyone with some soldering experience and you'll get 80% of the sound of a complete rewire because you throw away that piece of crap factory default interconnect. I used 4 Kynar conductors (30AWG silver-coated wire-wrapping wire from Radio Shack - #278-502) shielded with aluminum braid. The wires ran about 3cm to a pair of Radio Shack RCA jacks bolted to the plinth. It sounded far, far better than the low-quality unshielded cable that came with the unit and I can use whichever cables I want. At the time, I had shorted the left signal ground with earth ground, but it can be done with a dedicated earth ground very easily. Here are some photographs of the modification: profile view | profile view (zoomed) | top view | bird's-eye view.

I got fed up with the felt mat sticking to records after playback, so I decided to try out aftermarket mats. Someone recommended Ringmat XLR for Rega tables, so I bought one to try it out. I was extremely surprised by the difference the Ringmat makes - very detailed, much airier sound. I eventually sold it because it tends to stick to vinyl too by virtue of suction (the cork rings are concentric). It was a little too bright and somewhat artificial and going full acrylic platter without a mat (below) turned out to be a much better option. I can imagine that it may be too bright in many cases, especially if one has executed a rewire and is still using a mid-fi cartridge. It's very expensive for cork rings on a piece of paper and I think it is only worth it if you are going to use it on a stock table.

I caved in and bought the expensive Origin Live structural mod and found that it makes a remarkable difference. As mentioned above, after a properly set-up cartridge, this probably improves the sound of the table the most. The modification consists of a new steel end stub attached by a high tension bolt to an inner and outer-threaded washer that goes inside the arm. The counterweight slides up and down this stub and is anchored by a set screw, so the whole assembly becomes a true monocoque design. This is the approach that SME took with their stellar high-end arms. The effects are tremendous - bass becomes far tighter, channel separation improves, and the highs become very clear. One can adjust the high frequency character by the tension on the bolt: a tighter bolt brings out the highs more, a looser bolt does the opposite. Definitely worth the cost (they ship directly to US customers now for ~100USD), and if you can machine it yourself out of brass (higher density, more damping), even better.

A more recent update is an acrylic platter with a 0.75kg aluminum record clamp. This made more of a difference than I expected, basically making every record sound like a 180g record. I turned the platter from sheet acrylic (from McMaster-Carr on a lathe and did the same with some scrap aluminum to make a 2" tall, 3" diameter cylinder for the weight. I'm sorry I don't have any better pictures for now, but here's a picture of the table with the thinner first-generation platter. This other picture shows the table with record weight as well, but it's a little hard to see. The photo at the bottom of this webpage shows the much-refined second-gneration platter (1.9kg). I sometimes make these things for people ($100 shipped), so contact me if you want me to make one for you. Delivery time is about 2 weeks, sometimes sooner. Below are plans if you want to try and make it yourself:

An interesting thing I tried was to isolate the motor better. I nabbed some thick sorbothane damping material from my lab and used it in between the motor and plinth. Mounting style is with a pair of bolts like on the Planar 25 with attention paid to preventing vibrations from transferring to the plinth through the mounting bolts. I tested for vibrations with a stethoscope and they have gone down quite a bit from before. Just that much closer to a better table...

Remember, if you do any major modifications, your warranty is void. If you have any questions, just ask: csown@northwestern.edu. Happy modding!

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Website hand-coded by Christopher S. Own. This page last updated February 2003.

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