best rewire for an RB250

Hi

I looked all the options sometime back and most people reckon the Cardas rewire is the best option and, yes, the most expensive option at around £150 done for you. I've heard the silver rewire and in my opinion best avoided as it is not as easy on the ear as the copper version. Of course you could always take a punt on a secondhand 250 that's already been suped-up for about the same money as a rewire which would leave you with your arm to sell on (very tempting there's one on ebay at the moment)

If you go onto the Origin Live website they give you a specific order in which the RB250 arm should be upgraded. The first upgrade according to them should be the structural upgrade, i.e. replace the counterweight and stub, then the slotted arm and then rewiring. I upgraded my RB251 with the OL counterwight and stub and it makes a massive difference to the sound, especially in the bass region.

You can always rewire yourself. It's fiddly and the soldering can be a pain but it's not too hard. Plenty of instructions on the net. I bought some Cardas cable for about a tenner if memory serves me well.

I second what Sabby said - I've had all the Origin Live upgrades done on my RB250, but the one that made the most difference was replacing the counter weight (to my surprise, although I thought it improved the high end rather than the bass) - and the best thing is you can do it yourself in two minutes it couldn't be simpler. Can't really vouch for the OL rewire so much, not that it isn't good but I changed my cartridge at the same time, so couldn't be sure where the improvement came from.

Incidentally I've got a Systemdek IIX900 too - so hopefully you should find much the same.

Hi Guy's,

That's brilliant. Just the advice I was looking for.

It won't be strait away but as soon as I get anything done I will report back.

Once again thank you so much for your input!

Floydlgd 

Though I had a new counterweight recently and it made no difference to my RB300. In the end it's the cartridge that makes most difference so I'd have a look at that. Denon are good, as are the Ortofon OM series - not fond of their more recent offerings, but might be worth trying all the same.

Not sure about the rewire, by the way. I did mine then promptly had to mothball the hifi for a few years. Sounds great now, but I didn't listen to the turntable for 5 years after the rewire.

I'd read somewhere that the OL counterweight didn't make such an improvement on the RB300 as it did on the RB250 (most likley reflecting the fact that the RB300 is a better arm in the first place if nothing else) - but it improved my RB250 on my Systemdek so probably worth looking at as a tweak if you've got that set up

Incidentally if you do intend picking up an OL counterweight - might be worth looking on Ebay first, I've seen people selling them there cheaper than on the OL website - and there's not exactly much that can go wrong with them . . .

Quite agree about the cartidge - although I always liked the Goldring 1012 on the RB250.

Not had any experience with the OL counterweight but the Michell Technoweight is well worth considering, apparently keeping the weight below the main bearing is the trick. The biggest difference I noticed was improved bass definition and a lower noise floor.

Cheers Mitch65.

I wondered if anyone had used that as I have a real soft spot for Michell stuff!