Rega has announced a brand new budget turntable with a completely new design, aiming to "remove all the paranoia and confusion" of the vinyl world by creating the "perfect" plug-and-play deck for new vinyl listeners.
The Rega Replay is the brand's new entry-level offering priced competitively at £259 in the UK. Labelled as the "audiophile gateway drug", the turntable has been designed from the ground up over three years, to "deliver exceptional sound at an accessible price".
The Replay sits just under the multiple Award-winning Planar 1, which has traditionally been the most affordable record player in Rega's line-up. We originally tested the current Planar 1 back in 2016 at £250, but the price has steadily risen over the years to £329 now.
The Rega Replay features many of the core elements of the standard Planar 1 – the phenolic resin platter with flywheel effect, the RB110 tonearm, and the Carbon moving magnet cartridge fitted as standard.
But instead of a full-size conventional rectangular plinth, the Replay's plinth is as minimal as can be.
Inspired by the skeletal plinths of the more premium Planar 8 and 10 turntables, the Replay features a reduced plinth footprint that weighs a mere 2.2kg in total.
The plinth features a laminated "high rigidity, low skeletal mass" design with an MDF core. This follows Rega's long-held engineering belief that more mass saps music's natural energy and introduces unwanted resonances that negatively affect the turntable's performance.
The motor module under the main pulley also features the power input, power switch and a new PCB with built-in ventilation, and incorporates one of the three feet of the turntable.
The turntable remains a manual, belt-driven design, although there is no need to set the tracking force or anti-skating weight or balance the arm – you simply push the counterbalance weight on the tonearm as far as it'll go and that's all the set up required. Rega claims the Replay "can be set up and ready to use in under one minute."
The Replay comes with a white mat that has a "different texture on one side to optimise grip on the textured platter surface," says Rega, while the dustcover included is a minimal design, rather than a full-size hinged lid.
The Rega Replay will be going up against another long-running Award-winner, the Pro-Ject Primary E, which has been our favourite budget turntable for eight years now at a similar price of £249 in the UK. That's going to be quite the battle.
We're waiting to get a sample of the new Rega Replay in for testing, so stay tuned for a full review soon.
MORE:
Read our recent Rega Planar 6 RS Edition review
Our guide to the best turntables for every budget
