Rega Turntables Of England

Rega was started by Roy Gandy in England in 1973. He and his wife still run the company! Audio Emporium has sold Rega since we opened in 1977.

Rega’s niche has always been to make great sounding, affordable tables. In the early years, Rega made the turntables, but bought tonearms and carts from other sources to round them out. They were outstanding for their day.

By the mid 80s Rega was making its line of tables, arms and even cartridges, in house in England. Regas have always had the fit and finish of a UK product, vs something slapped together in an assembly house somewhere else. Rega continues this quality today!

Rega is fanatical about the details of making record playing machines. These tables use precision ground belts, play 33-45 RPM, and have strong rejection to skipping when people walk around your room. All spring loaded designs, even expensive ones for $10k, skip like mad if your toddler runs by.

The sonic advantage of Rega tables vs direct drives, is that they sound more CLEAR, especially in the bass region. There is less ringing, hence less muddiness, with Rega. Guitar picking and piano attacks are more clearly spelled out. You get to enjoy the craft of a great tactician more clearly with Rega than the mid priced rumble boxes out there. Even before Rega made its own arms, we used them as tables alone. And yes, absolutely, the machine spinning the record makes a big difference in the sound.

Planar One With Carbon Cartridge $595

Planar 1 is a true cut above table, even at its entry level price point.

*Rega makes its own thrust plates to be flat.

*They use low friction bearings that ride within a brass well

*Planar 1 uses an aluminum pulley

*Planar 1 uses a phenolic platter to create a fly wheel affect

*Rega makes their own one piece tonearms, RB110 in this case, with low resonance and high quality bearings.

*Their auto bias mechanism is magnetically controlled.

*Planar 1 uses a plinth of Thermoset glass laminate.

*Their Carbon cartridge is a good tracking moving magnet design with 2.5mV output.

In short, Planar One isn’t an assembly of cheap motors and parts from Asia, cobbled together in some building- heaven only knows where- and shipped out with a fancy logo on its box.

Planar Two with Carbon Cartridge $775

Planar 2 is a nice step above Planar 1 above. It has a quieter motor and superior, 10mm glass platter. The plinth is acrylic laminate. It uses cut above RB220 tonearm with lower friction bearings than RB110. Planar 2 has heavier duty, superior isolating feet. Planar 2 has a quieter background and allows a BIGGER and more robust sound to be heard.

For Planar 2 in particular, I’d like to twist your arm to consider a better cartridge. My choice is the Ortofon 2M Blue, $239. For about a grand, you’re getting a slice of true high end performance at a magic price point.

Planar Three with Elys 2 Cartridge $1395

Planar 3 is an industry standard. It has a better motor, 12mm glass platter and better tonearm, RB330, than Planar 2. In fact, RB330 ($675 by itself) is an industry classic arm which Rega sells to a variety of vendors- who only make spinning mechanisms on their own. Planar 3 features double bracing for its arm interface, with 3mm phenolic bracing underneath the table, and a metal brace above. Planar 3 comes with its own power supply, but will accommodate Rega’s Neo supply ($445) if you want to upgrade.

It comes with Rega’s Elys 2 cart, an industry stalwart that sells for $345 on its own. Elys 2 has a one piece aluminum cantilever and nude elliptical stylus, with an output of 7.0mV. Keep in mind that almost all MM carts have two piece cantilever construction and you suffer loss of transmission energy with 2 pieces vs one.

There are many advantages to Planar 3 with Elys 2 if you can stretch your budget.

John & Yoko’s Neighbor

John & Yoko’s neighbor moved into the Dakota apartment building in NYC a few years before John’s murder. She was the first black resident of the Dakota and became fast friends with John, Yoko and son Sean. They enjoyed much neighborly time together, and shared a little music too. It turns out the new neighbor had even a larger, louder piano than John did. But the Lennons didn’t mind, because she was a talented classical pianist who happened to sing a bit too. Their neighbor… Roberta Flack.

Bryston A110: $2300 For An Amazing Speaker Array!

Two grand is a popular price point in the speaker market. What’s the best value for about $2k?

Let’s up the ante a little bit because $2300 gets you into a WHOLE NEW WORLD for just a little more money.

The majority of offerings in this range are Chinese imports. Most are flimsy, booming towers- that actually don’t go very deep. They are literally generic- made by job houses that output a myriad of different brands on different days.

The Bryston A110 Array will absolutely BURY these flimsy imports when it comes purveying the weight of a real musical experience happening in your living room!

Bryston of Canada builds its speakers to a higher echelon of sound and reliability than what

we can get from the far east. Bryston’s A3 tower at $3290 per pair is the least expensive full range tower going. It’s a legit, heavy hitting 3-way that clobbers the imports with prodigious bass and a smooth high end response. A3 will deliver crushing bass in a big room while the imports whimper. But this entry is about speakers for two grand-ish, not three.

The A110 Array consists of Bryston Tiny A stand mount speakers, mated with the prodigious JL D110 subwoofer. The A110 will sound more smooth, clear and can turn the $2k imports into kindling for your fireplace!

Bryston Tiny A $990 Per Pair: 20 Year Warranty!

Bryston recently introduced its lovely Tiny A stand mount speakers for $990 per pair. Tiny A has most of the quality and refinement of its bigger brothers. It primarily gives away points in its bass response. We have a plan for that.

We want you to start this project with a pair of Tiny A’s. It’s a 6.5” 2-way, built very solidly with a 20 year warranty (!!). The tweeter is the same Titanium design as used in its bigger brothers. The bass-mid driver is the same 6.5” Cast Frame, Anodized Aluminum driver used in Mini A. Tiny A has outstanding transparency and imaging characteristics.

Please visit our home page and check the yellow tabs at the bottom. Please read the entry, Bryston Speakers. You’ll see what goes into Bryston that the other guys just won’t spend the time and money to do.

We just need to help Tiny A out with some muscle. That leads me to…

JL Audio D110 Powered Subwoofer $1300

We’re going to augment the Tiny A’s with JL’s sledgehammer powered subwoofer, the D110, made in Florida.

D110 is an absolute FORCE of nature! It uses a SEALED cabinet to deliver deep, tight bass. The amp is 750w RMS, and was designed specifically for D110. JL is built right here in the US. It’s not a flimsy import with plate amp that came across the ocean.

D110 features a Herculean 10” woofer that dwarfs other subs in its price class. Please note its deep, cast frame design. The D110 woofer is so deep and thick that it literally would not fit into any modestly priced cabinet design near this price point. The driver is melded into a one inch thick metal front baffle. All the other guys use 8 screws to load their woofs into soft MDF cabinets.

Bryston Tiny A and JL D110 are providing you with Gibraltar-esque bass response while keeping the price a tick above two grand. Since JL builds its own woofers in its own house in Florida, it can do so to a more rigid standard than the Chinese.

There simply is NO tower at anywhere near this price point that can deliver better bass than the D110. When you study D110’s woofer, you can see it won’t even fit in a traditional tower enclosure. The other guys don’t use drivers like this.

A110 can’t be equaled by stamped speakers with a chuffing, ported sub. We’re selling you bass performance with solid, tight testosterone, made in the USA. We’re selling you stand mount speakers that sound warm, tough and come with a 20 year warranty- made in Canada.

All told, for not much more than $2k you can have your cake and eat it too. That is, you get more Steinway Smooth musicality and rock solid muscle- built in N America!

Isotek Corvus V3 Promo $800

Corvus is a 20 amp (note the C19 terminal necessary to support 20a) mains conditioner with 9 outlets. It filters different amounts at different frequencies. Ultimately Isotek claims 35dB filtering.

Each of its 9 outlets has its own filter. Hence Corvus is a cut above the Polaris, a unit that filters at 30dB and has one filter for the entire bar. Corvus comes with a Premier power cable to go from the wall to the conditioner. That’s worth $250 alone.

I highly recommend snaring a Corvus at $800 because the new price will be $1100 when the promo runs out. Polaris was disco’d and its replacement model hit the market at $900. We love Polaris but it would be wise to get a Corvus instead- for less money while we can offer that price.

You have superior isolation 35-30 dB, more outlets with more filtration (9 outlets and 9 filters compared to 6 outlets with 1 filter) and a 20 amp conditioner instead of 15 amp. Corvus comes with one Premier power cable ($250 a la carte). All aspects of Corvus are a notch up, and the promo makes it a great buy.

Ending of Simon & Garfunkel

Paul Simon reports that as “Bridge Over Trouble Water” was going to be made, Art was making a movie, “Catch 22.” After completing C22, Paul thought they would get back to working on music full time. Paul heard from a C22 actor that Art would soon be working on “Carnal Knowledge.” Paul felt there was a real tug of war in the studio when doing BOTW and decided to call it quits as a duo when Art told him yes, another movie is in the works.