A hi-fi classic: meet Rega's first-ever record player, the Planet

Never heard of the Rega Planet turntable? We wouldn’t blame you. It was the company’s first product and was introduced in April 1973. Rega made it for only four years before phasing it out for the more conventional-looking and hugely talented – and now iconic – Planar 3 model. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The inaugural Planet was originally supplied without a tonearm, which wasn’t unusual back then. Most buyers went for something such as the highly regarded SME 3009 arm with good results. However, Roy Gandy, Rega’s co-founder, wanted to sell complete units, and the search for a suitable tonearm for his new deck led to a company called Cosmocord.

Cosmocord had plenty of stock of the Acos Lustre tonearm, and a deal was struck whereby it would supply the tonearm to Rega and take care of the distribution of the complete deck. The record player became the Acos Rega Planet while the agreement lasted (around a year), and then the Acos branding was dropped once Rega took charge of its own distribution.

Take a close look at the sample provided to us by Rega, and it is remarkable just how much of the Planet’s design is still reflected in the company’s current turntables. To our eyes, the Planet ooks for all the world like an early Planar 3 with a fancy trio of pods to support the record. And, to a large extent, that’s exactly what it is.

That distinctive platter-less design was inspired by the premium Transcriptors decks of the day, with Gandy deciding that his first product needed something distinctive to stand out in what was already a crowded turntable market.

Early versions of the outriggers used chrome-plated brass, which was later changed to silver anodised aluminium with an inlaid rubber ‘o’ ring, as on our sample. The outrigger arrangement still looks stunning, and it is hard to keep our eyes off the deck when the pods are spinning with no record on top.

There is, however, a reason that just about every turntable on the market uses a flat platter to support the record. Those pods leave large parts of the record unsupported, and those sections pick up airborne vibrations, which adversely affect sound quality.

This is why the company moved to a more conventional platter design (though ultimately in glass rather than aluminium) for the Planer 3 that followed.

The Planet’s plinth will look entirely familiar to those who know Rega’s turntables. In this earliest incarnation, it is a chipboard piece that is black laminated on all its surfaces. This makes the structure relatively light and rigid – parameters that the company’s turntable designs have continued to prioritise over the years.

Gandy’s early experiments with plinths led him to conclude that excess mass was a bad thing, due to high noise-transmission and energy storage.

There was a long search for an appropriate motor. Rega eventually settled on one made by Philips and imported into England by a company called Impex. The motor was principally used in pinball machines, but it had qualities that Gandy wanted. It ran at a lower speed than the others he had tried, which meant he could use a larger pulley and smaller centre drive hub. The result was a quieter operation with less vibration.

It took months of development to engineer a suitable way to mount the motor onto the solid plinth. In the end, a combination of a rubber ‘o’ ring and a suitably positioned metal plate did the trick. This arrangement allowed accurate motor alignment and good decoupling, while providing enough motor-body movement to compensate for any irregularities in the drive belt.

Those belts were bought as 3mm continuous cylindrical lengths of rubber, cut to size and then hand-glued end-to-end by Gandy. Enabling the drive system to cope with belt irregularities was certainly sensible.

As for the Planet’s feet, these were from a company that made rubber door stops. Originally, Gandy bought off-the-shelf designs, but after a number of weeks (and regular orders, we suspect), the company made bespoke feet for Rega. These were deeper and softer for added clearance and better isolation from support vibrations.

How does the Rega Planet sound today? Our test sample is straight from Rega’s vaults and is an early Acos Rega Planet fitted with the Acos Lustre arm. The cartridge fitted is Rega’s current entry-level moving magnet, the Carbon, which is a solid, balanced performer for its modest £35 / $75 price.

We connect the Planet to our reference system of Cyrus Phono Signature/PSX-R2 phono stage, Burmester 088/911 MkIII amplifier and ATC SCM50 speakers, as well as a more price-compatible combination of Rega Brio Mk7 and KEF LS50 Meta speakers. Regardless of the partnering system, the Planet turns in a charming though not flawless performance.

Speed stability could be better, and the Planet isn’t the most dynamic performer. It’s fair to say that any current Planar turntable, including the entry-level Planar 1, gets more out of the record groove. Yet, we can’t help but enjoy ourselves.

We spend a few days working through our record collection, taking in large-scale classical symphonies such as Beethoven’s Fifth, old jazz classics such as Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis and modern pop productions such as Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever set. The Planet succeeds in putting a smile on our faces.

This is no sonic microscope. It doesn't dig out the last grain of information from the record groove – and the fitted Carbon MM isn’t going to do that, either. However, the Planet is a fun and interesting listen.

The information it does dig up is presented in a cohesive and balanced way. Music flows when played on this record player and, even by current standards, communicates the emotional content well. The latter point may seem like a throwaway line, but it is still surprising just how many hi-fi products, almost regardless of price, fail in this important respect.

While rhythmic precision isn’t impeccable, we get a good sense of musical momentum and involuntarily tap our feet with tunes that encourage such behaviour. Large-scale dynamic swings, such as in the Beethoven symphony, are soft pedalled, but lower-level intensity shifts still come through satisfyingly.

The tonality of a record player is largely dictated by the cartridge, and the Carbon is a nicely balanced performer. It doesn’t go overboard at either frequency extreme, avoiding any annoying peaks or troughs in frequency. The Carbon may be modestly priced, but it steps out of the way of the music better than most moving magnets at its price.

That sentiment applies to the Rega Planet as a whole. It isn’t massively revealing or insightful by modern standards, but put on your favourite record, and we’re sure you’ll enjoy it. When that record ends, we think the temptation to put another one on will be strong.

Ultimately, when a piece of hi-fi encourages you to listen to another piece of music, it's doing its job well. Judged in this context, the Rega Planet still does the job.

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