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Invest & Upgrade Rega P2 or P3

A

ArbInv

New Member
Apologies for slightly long story here.

I currently own two Rega turntables.

1) A P3 which I purchased in the UK and runs on 230v. As I am now in the US i have been unable to use this. This has a Rega Elys (purple) cartridge but is otherwise standard.

2) A P2 which I purchased several years ago in the US and has had several upgrades including:

a) Mitchell Tecnoweight Counterweight (see https://www.vinylengine.com/michell-tecnoweight.shtml)

b) Incognito wiring upgrade kit (see https://www.gcaudio.com/products/incognito-rewiring-kit-for-rega-tonearms/)

This P2 also has a Rega Elys 2 (blue) cartridge fitted and a spare purple Elys cartridge.

So the question is should I just forget about the P3 and not try and sort the voltage / power supply issue or will it be worth the effort? If the latter might it be possible to use the power supply from the P2? And then might it be worth pulling the various other upgrades off the P2 and putting these all onto the P3 and really going to town. Lastly, I would not be able to do all this myself so would need to find someone to do this (Washington DC area).

Any help on the questions above and advice would be most welcome.

regards

Andy
 
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ArbInv said:
Any help on the questions above and advice would be most welcome.
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I would start by making contact with the Rega importer:

The Sound Organisation
1009 Oakmead Drive
Arlington, TX 76011
United States of America Call us at (972) 234-0182

They should be able to tell you exactly what's involved and whether it's best to ship it to them or if there's a dealer local to you qualified to do the work involved.
 
Ok so i go my hands on the Goldsource STU 500 and now have the P3 spinning. When I tested it I realized that the original Elys (purple) cartridge is end of life and not working.

So now my quandary is do i just get on with life and use the P2 and figure its fine or do I perhaps migrate over the Elys 2 and maybe some of the other upgrades (listed above) to the P3 and maybe even the glass platter. Bottom line is the P2 with upgrades likely already better than the P3 or will P3 outperform regardless and therefore worth the time and money on the swapover?
 
ArbInv said:
Ok so i go my hands on the Goldsource STU 500 and now have the P3 spinning.
Click to expand...
Just curious if your STU 500 is able to convert both voltage and frequency. I've read that the 50 Hz frequency in the UK necessitates a different motor pulley size than the 60 Hz frequency in the USA. I'm curious because one description of the STU 500 that I read online, though this was NOT from the manufacturer, said, "CE Certified step-up and step-down AC voltage transformer converts from 110V up to 220V or from 200/220/240V down to 110V. (Please note a voltage converter does NOT change the frequency, in another word, what goes in is what comes out, either 50 Hz or 60Hz)." If the frequency doesn't match the pulley, then the rpm of the platter will be wrong. I'm no expert, so I still think a call to The Sound Organisation is worthwhile.
 
Interesting. Right now I have no way of testing this as the cartridge is defunct but as I saw his spinning I figured it must be working as intended.
 
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