Rega RP1

@ TDJ

2 Hz ??? You won't hear that low, that's for sure. Here's what you do: remove the front of your speakers and touch the woofers and feel if they vibrate. If so, and if that's the drumming noise you say you hear, the noise will be above 30 to 80 Hz. What you hear is probably coming from the motor. Does it get louder or disappear if you move the tone arm from or to the spindle or disappear at all if you turn off the turntable? If so, it's definately coming from the motor: induction. Some cartridges are quite sensitive for it. Either replace your cart, or replace the turntable. However, the turntable itself should be equipped with sufficient quality components to avoid it as much as possible. Same goes for carts that should be shielded enough in order to take these kinds of interferences.

On the other hand, is this humming aubible at normal listening levels? Or only if you turn up the volume all the way with no signal? If you do that, you can't blaim either the turntable and its components or the cartridge.....

Bill

Before I would buy a new turntable, I would like to know what the EXACT wow and flutter figures are of that specific type, and the friction of the tone arm bearings and other vital specs. How can it be that What HIFI accept and allow manufacturers to omit these figures? And why doesn't state What HIFI their findings, if any? I mean, I hope What HIFI does test products properly. For a turntable these figures are absolutely necessary, not only for comparison between makes and types, but also to understand that that given manufacturer believes in what he puts on the market. Simply repeating what's stated in bruchures won't do, not for me that is. Such "reviews" are less than worthless.

Either What HIFI gets payed by these manufacturers or they simply don't care as long as they sell their glossies. Time for a change, What HIFI. TDJ's contribution tells us its time for that change. 

Bill.

@GeorgiusMaximus

I don't think anyone (not even Rega) would want to compare this to the Original Planar 2 with a RB250!

RP1/P1/and P2 are all very poor cousins in comparison, from a sound and build quality point of view.

A sad example of a classic being engineered down to a price!

Dealer for Rega in Greece said they will not import the new RP1, so I started calling dealers in UK provided by Rega's website.

The Harrow Audio of London had agreed to send me an RP1 + Rega Mini Phono stage to my address in Greece as soon as the new Titanium model was available.

And so they did. This is a very good turntable considering its price tag. My RP1 is connected to Cambridge Audio A500, and Mission 760i. I am waiting to receive van den Hul cabling for both speakers as for interconnect, but even without these, the sound is full and just lovely. Also, Rega Mini Phono stage is a solid sound companion to the RP1.

The only detail I would like to see improved on RP1 is that Rega leaves the user to choose the deck's interconnect, hence, to deliver the deck with non-fixed external cabling.

I brought one of these from Radlett Audio about two weeks ago, and auditioned it first. Such a great all-rounder, and reveals parts in my music collection that i've never heard before. The Ortofon Cartridge is a great all rounder too. Bit of a shame that the interconnects cant be changed, because they look like they would have as much screening as standard interconnects which may limit the detail.

Hi - this is more a question than a review - has anyone compared this to the old Rega Planar 2 with RB250 arm?

Cheers,

George

I bought an RP1 unseen based on the Best Buy recommendation and Rega's pedigree.  I'm going to delay final judgement because I had a couple of issues.  Firstly, the mechanism to raise and lower the tone arm was set too low to raise the stylus above the record.  A phone call to the retailer resulted in Rega sending a very small allen key to adjust the mechanism.  Praise to both the retailer and Rega for their speedy response.  Secondly, and more concerning is the drumming noise, at about 2 Hz, from the motor that is clearly audible from the other side of the room when there's no music playing.  The retailer's model has the same feature, which Rega say is normal.  The RP1 replaces elderly Connoisseur and Dual turntables whose motors are still silent.  I'm not convinced the RP1 is progress.