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Rega RP1 review
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Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Hmm, I wasn't aware of this new model. This part of the review is a particularly big compliment, based on all the praise the Oppo has been getting:
When comparing the Rega to the sound of the OPPO 83SE digital player, the Rega table definitely had the edge over digital playback, sounding much more open and natural.
When comparing the Rega to the sound of the OPPO 83SE digital player, the Rega table definitely had the edge over digital playback, sounding much more open and natural.
davidro
Lunatic Member
The reviewer appears to have used Denon 103R coupled with some $1400 phono preamp and Marantz 2275 (instead of the Orto OM5e coupled with a generic $30 phono amp) which would easily outweigh the value of the Oppo so I guess the comparison is not entirely unreasonable :scratch2:
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Good point.
To set the record straight....
The Denon cartridge was only used on the RP1 in my reference system, while connected to the ARC REF Phono 2. The reason this was done was to answer the question that the upgrade concerned audiophile who will want to know if "the RP1 is good enough to use with a better cartridge."
When used with the Croft gear and KEF speakers it had the stock cartridge and stylus, again, keeping more within the budget nature of the table.
When used with the Marantz 2275 and JBL L-100's the stock Ortofon was also used, again hopefully answering the "I've got a decent budget rig, is this table worthwhile?" question.
And not complete at review time, we did try the Ortofon cartridge with the upgraded OM40 stylus with excellent results. This is a great upgrade for someone who doesn't want to fiddle with swapping cartridges, but would like more performance.
Hope that clears things up. And in my reference system I did prefer the sound of the RP1 with stock cart to the OPPO. When swapping up to the Denon cart even more so, though this isn't going to be a "fair" comparison to many, because the OPPO is $500 and the REGA/Denon combo is closer to $900.
The Denon cartridge was only used on the RP1 in my reference system, while connected to the ARC REF Phono 2. The reason this was done was to answer the question that the upgrade concerned audiophile who will want to know if "the RP1 is good enough to use with a better cartridge."
When used with the Croft gear and KEF speakers it had the stock cartridge and stylus, again, keeping more within the budget nature of the table.
When used with the Marantz 2275 and JBL L-100's the stock Ortofon was also used, again hopefully answering the "I've got a decent budget rig, is this table worthwhile?" question.
And not complete at review time, we did try the Ortofon cartridge with the upgraded OM40 stylus with excellent results. This is a great upgrade for someone who doesn't want to fiddle with swapping cartridges, but would like more performance.
Hope that clears things up. And in my reference system I did prefer the sound of the RP1 with stock cart to the OPPO. When swapping up to the Denon cart even more so, though this isn't going to be a "fair" comparison to many, because the OPPO is $500 and the REGA/Denon combo is closer to $900.
davidro
Lunatic Member
I did read the whole article and didn't think it was clear which setup was being compared with the Oppo setup. Jeff the reviewer didn't make it clear and my impression was that one could always say 'oh that was of course the Denon 103R setup'.
Thanks for the clarification :thmbsp: V impressive that the stock cart was better.
However are you sure Oppo BDP 83-SE is $500 only? Music Direct for example sells it for $899. They sell it for $1,690.00 (and that's a sale price) where I live
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Ok will then let me return to my original sentiment and add that I'm impressed this particular tonearm - which I assume is approximately medium mass - is able to "handle" the 103. Maybe we'll have a new default "go-to" entry-level turntable in future threads?
However are you sure Oppo BDP 83-SE is $500 only? Music Direct for example sells it for $899. They sell it for $1,690.00 (and that's a sale price) where I live
No here the SE version is more expensive, the regular stock BDP83 is $500.
You need to move. Call a couple tractor trailer drivers and pack up the Mahler collection. Hmm, better make it three tractor trailer drivers.
I have one sitting in my house at this point in time (purchased last week/received today) with the REGA upgrade pack installed. I will post a review once the cartridge breaks in, however, 6 hours into the process the system is already sounding superb and I am sure the cartridge has broken in twice already 
OK - here goes - my first review - I will try and post a photo later on.
My intent was to order a Rega 5 system as this was within my budget and for the obvious sonic advances over what would be offered by the lower Rega systems, however with rumours of upgrades in the works and being stuck with no TT (my prior model was a Project RPM4 with a Grado Gold cartridge was in VTA hell) I decided to opt for a cheap option and part exchange it when a new Rega 5 model was released. I chose the Rega due to the reputation of being musically.
I use a Cambridge Audio 640P (still burning in)...
The box - tiny surely the postal worker delivered the wrong box as I do not recall ordering a 17 inch laptop). . . . In any event once opened everything was neatly packed and even made sense. Inside I found the old mat, the old belt drive and the old Ortofon cartridge since mine was an upgraded RP1 ( a white belt drive, a Rega Bias 2 cartridge and a wool mat).
Intial set up, a complete breeze, had to do very little apart from plug everything in. I was dissapointed to note that the cables connecting to the tonearm where in built thus I could not change for the better cables I use (only 1 step up from ordinary cables but a worthwhile upgrade in my eyes).
Once I set it up on the isolation shelf the first thing that struck me (to my sadness) was that the build quality was not so great and in fact this thing looked so tiny compared to my chunky RPM4, the platter in particular was virtually like a piece of flat plastic which upon close inspection was not even as thick as the look from the outside would lead you to believe (huge inner circular gap when looking inside). Having said that the overall look is appealing, it is only when you start inspecting up close and lift the TT upwards you realise these flaws.
No judgements at this point in time on my part as I had yet to even switch this thing on. As I was depserate to hear this thing I did not attach the lid and left as it was.
First step, the on-off button, beautiful and fits the thumb/fingers well with its curvaciousness, I loved the feel and upon switch on the motor made a nosie which made me think that I had already broken it, however this dissappeared after 5-6 lp's.
The tonearm, as per my prior mention I used the 'appalling' tonearm as per the Project RPM4 which felt lightweight and was a complete mess in terms of design - too may fiddly parts and mostly for people willing to dabble with VTA alignment every other day. This tonearm felt nice, a slight touch heavier but I felt more assured by the apparent look of quality it had when touching it (it is a Rega arm after all).
As for my music, I listen mostly to ethnic Jazz fusion music from the States circa 1961 - 1975 (examples below), ordinary Jazz, and artists like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis etc.
First lp hits the deck all excited - the happy smile went a little awry when I could not work out why no sound from the left channel when I could have sworn I plugged everything in, yea I did but not that well, so test 2 - ok it works.
First lp played : - Strangers in the Night Sinatra reprise mono - it was bad, and my delight started turning to dissapointment. I could make out very little in the form of instruments. Saxophones/trumpets were all lost to what sounded more akin to a Disney 60's soundtrack than a professional studio recording, no soundstage, no depth, instruments sounded so odd especially trumpets which simply dissapeared, no lengthy impacts. First thoughts were OK, this is not a permanent set up - after all I am striving for a Rega 5 setup. I needledropped the whole lp over to cd via audio cd recorder and when it came to finalisation accidentally deleted it, and did not want to revisit... onto the next lp...
Next LP - Greek Cooking -Phil Woods (sax)/Iordanis Tsomidis (bouzouki). I chose this lp as second on purpose as it has a lot of challenging diverse instruments, sax, clarinet (and others) mixing with ethnic instruments oud and a Greek bouzouki. I also chose it because half the lp is sheer brilliance and the other is on the other side of the scale nothing short of a complete mess. So the first side plays, they go through a cheesy version of Zorba the Greek, both sax and bouzouki sound dull (not just due to the RP1), a taste of honey arrives, still nothing good and at this point I was wondering what was happening and if the RP1 was worthy of the albeit short time frame purchase. Side A eventually played out - this was the 'bad' side. Side B of this lp only has 3 tracks although more exciting and full of kick, same as sound A, by this time I would have been playing lp's for about 1 hour and had figured maybe this was it, although I still had hope. . .
Listening to the track Nyca - Phil Woods starts off with his beautiful sax piece and as this is one of my personal favourites I was very into the mood for it - sound remained the same. . . . then it came. . the track hits 2mins the bouzouki player prepares his solo and I was amazed, it felt like a unison of the phono amp, the TT, and the cartridge breaking in and I was amazed at what was happening I had never heard this track played with either so much clarity or definition - soundstage still weak, but the prior 2 points made up for the lack of of soundstage, each and every note was crisp the drums and cymbal sounds came beautifully crashing it at various points and at no time overpowered the sound but in fact complimented what was already there.
I transfered the vinyl drop across to my pc and heard it over again and was amazed at the immense clarity (I use an advanced soudcard in my pc plugged into my Yamaha ax 393 amp).
Third LP - Gus Vali/Tricks - a beautiful and amazing piece of fusion with elements of early funk. I chose this lp for its production values which I always found great and despite the lp being some 40 years old it is in my opinion better manufactured than 95% of lp's today - REAL heavy duty where 180 was the minimum expected not the stated! Again amazing sound, if anything the sound got a lot meatier with more depth and scale, taking over the speakers was a sense that the notes never stopped playing and as the lp progressed, the little funky guitar notes every few seconds, the strumming away was captured very well - again at this point the cartridge broke in yet again however as of yet no real soundstage. Clarity remained so I knew this hurdle had passed. Again the needledrop worked very well and the sound I got back from my trusty Yamaha was impressive (from both Hard Drive play and CD).
Final LP - Giocondas Smile by Manos Hatzidakis produced by Quincy Jones. Again I chose this release for a reason, notably the music represents one of the most amazing fusion recordings I have ever heard, a mix of early 60's pop/classical guitar and phenomenal use of a Harpsichord, the music is full of depth and borders between modern classical and fusion. It also represented another chance to play something different and once again test this 'budget' turntable. For this release I have an original 1966 print from EMI Greece.
the sound produced was very clean and clear and as it was a classical release had likely received more 'superior production' techniques than usual releases of the time. The first point that struck me was the in fact the soundstage which was becoming more apparant, everything seemed to play with a relaxed amount of ease, simply blowing through vast gaps of air in the studio/hall and being reproduced through this turntable, percussion sounded deep withouth being overly aggressive (need to check rock music later), instruments like clarinets, flute where all well played but what struck me more than the soundstage and the ease was the level of quality revealed when the orchestra would unite in pieces and submerge from single instruments into one, for example 5/6 violins vs the one harp, the one harpsichord, beautiful and completely mesmorising, (I admit to bias as the albumn really is sheer class for anyone interested in this style of music). Harps sounded clear and detailed.
Track 3-4 had more of a pop sound to the classical music and this worked well also however I found that when 2 instruments play the same piece together (in this case a lute and a harpischord) it was not so clear as the rest of the release. Slow violin pieces sounded beautiful and almost caressing I was very moved by it. The ending to track 4 with the harpsichord solo is nothing short of sublime, one of the few 20 second pieces I can say really is amazing and it came across beautifully - again as with the previous LP I heard no further break in which was a little dissapointing
Next and in brief, I played a 90's triple compilation of 60's folk music and was overall not impressed with anything I heard, most of the tracks were 63-72, nothing stood out or sounded good, but I wonder if this had more to do with the lp's being a bad print (evident in 90's releases overall). I will test this out in the coming weeks and update you all as I am assuming irrespective of any further cartridge break ins it will not improve the sound - everything simply sounded flat as if the entire sound spectrum had been reduced by 20%.
Finally I played a few 45's - admittedly these were not in the best condition. I do not think this machine is suited to playing 45's, apart from the loudness issue when playing (about a 30% jump) everything felt a little rushed - possibly I did not have luck changing the belt drive. For myself however I do not have many 45 singles.
I will update once I play more tracks, but so far for the price range this is WAY beyond my expectations and far superior to the RPM4 with Grado Gold that I purchased for a similar price in 2002. The listening continues but I do have to say either I totally wrecked my RPM4 or Rega have produced a system that is way above and beyond what I expected at this price point. Even at this early stage I would argue it is the Rega as I still have my needledrops from 2002 (I will dig them out and compare). One other point about the Rega it produces a very nice vinyl sound, when deciding between the Clearaudio and the Rega 5, despite the Clearaudio winning on looks (hands down) I wanted a turntable that sounded like a turntable should, the Rega does that for me with mild pick up of the inner groove at the start of each LP and between tracks. I would say any pops, hisses etc are at an overall minimum however most of my lp's are played 2-3 times at most as I always needledrop everything. My main aim with the turntable was to capture the depth and feel that sound is streaming at you via the air space in front of you. So far this TT does that. Even on my CD transfers everything sounds like a record should.
If anyone is interested, I did finally put the lid on today and as with the overall build of the machine I did not think it was so great, for some reason it does not seem to stay fitted in although it takes a small effort to take out.
Hope someone - anyone - enjoyed!
- I will try and post a photo later on.My intent was to order a Rega 5 system as this was within my budget and for the obvious sonic advances over what would be offered by the lower Rega systems, however with rumours of upgrades in the works and being stuck with no TT (my prior model was a Project RPM4 with a Grado Gold cartridge was in VTA hell) I decided to opt for a cheap option and part exchange it when a new Rega 5 model was released. I chose the Rega due to the reputation of being musically.
I use a Cambridge Audio 640P (still burning in)...
The box - tiny
surely the postal worker delivered the wrong box as I do not recall ordering a 17 inch laptop). . . . In any event once opened everything was neatly packed and even made sense. Inside I found the old mat, the old belt drive and the old Ortofon cartridge since mine was an upgraded RP1 ( a white belt drive, a Rega Bias 2 cartridge and a wool mat).Intial set up, a complete breeze, had to do very little apart from plug everything in. I was dissapointed to note that the cables connecting to the tonearm where in built thus I could not change for the better cables I use (only 1 step up from ordinary cables but a worthwhile upgrade in my eyes).
Once I set it up on the isolation shelf the first thing that struck me (to my sadness) was that the build quality was not so great and in fact this thing looked so tiny compared to my chunky RPM4, the platter in particular was virtually like a piece of flat plastic which upon close inspection was not even as thick as the look from the outside would lead you to believe (huge inner circular gap when looking inside). Having said that the overall look is appealing, it is only when you start inspecting up close and lift the TT upwards you realise these flaws.
No judgements at this point in time on my part as I had yet to even switch this thing on. As I was depserate to hear this thing I did not attach the lid and left as it was.
First step, the on-off button, beautiful and fits the thumb/fingers well with its curvaciousness, I loved the feel and upon switch on the motor made a nosie which made me think that I had already broken it, however this dissappeared after 5-6 lp's.
The tonearm, as per my prior mention I used the 'appalling' tonearm as per the Project RPM4 which felt lightweight and was a complete mess in terms of design - too may fiddly parts and mostly for people willing to dabble with VTA alignment every other day. This tonearm felt nice, a slight touch heavier but I felt more assured by the apparent look of quality it had when touching it (it is a Rega arm after all).
As for my music, I listen mostly to ethnic Jazz fusion music from the States circa 1961 - 1975 (examples below), ordinary Jazz, and artists like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis etc.
First lp hits the deck all excited - the happy smile went a little awry when I could not work out why no sound from the left channel when I could have sworn I plugged everything in, yea I did but not that well, so test 2 - ok it works.
First lp played : - Strangers in the Night Sinatra reprise mono - it was bad, and my delight started turning to dissapointment. I could make out very little in the form of instruments. Saxophones/trumpets were all lost to what sounded more akin to a Disney 60's soundtrack than a professional studio recording, no soundstage, no depth, instruments sounded so odd especially trumpets which simply dissapeared, no lengthy impacts. First thoughts were OK, this is not a permanent set up - after all I am striving for a Rega 5 setup. I needledropped the whole lp over to cd via audio cd recorder and when it came to finalisation accidentally deleted it, and did not want to revisit... onto the next lp...
Next LP - Greek Cooking -Phil Woods (sax)/Iordanis Tsomidis (bouzouki). I chose this lp as second on purpose as it has a lot of challenging diverse instruments, sax, clarinet (and others) mixing with ethnic instruments oud and a Greek bouzouki. I also chose it because half the lp is sheer brilliance and the other is on the other side of the scale nothing short of a complete mess. So the first side plays, they go through a cheesy version of Zorba the Greek, both sax and bouzouki sound dull (not just due to the RP1), a taste of honey arrives, still nothing good and at this point I was wondering what was happening and if the RP1 was worthy of the albeit short time frame purchase. Side A eventually played out - this was the 'bad' side. Side B of this lp only has 3 tracks although more exciting and full of kick, same as sound A, by this time I would have been playing lp's for about 1 hour and had figured maybe this was it, although I still had hope. . .
Listening to the track Nyca - Phil Woods starts off with his beautiful sax piece and as this is one of my personal favourites I was very into the mood for it - sound remained the same. . . . then it came. . the track hits 2mins the bouzouki player prepares his solo and I was amazed, it felt like a unison of the phono amp, the TT, and the cartridge breaking in and I was amazed at what was happening I had never heard this track played with either so much clarity or definition - soundstage still weak, but the prior 2 points made up for the lack of of soundstage, each and every note was crisp the drums and cymbal sounds came beautifully crashing it at various points and at no time overpowered the sound but in fact complimented what was already there.
I transfered the vinyl drop across to my pc and heard it over again and was amazed at the immense clarity (I use an advanced soudcard in my pc plugged into my Yamaha ax 393 amp).
Third LP - Gus Vali/Tricks - a beautiful and amazing piece of fusion with elements of early funk. I chose this lp for its production values which I always found great and despite the lp being some 40 years old it is in my opinion better manufactured than 95% of lp's today - REAL heavy duty where 180 was the minimum expected not the stated! Again amazing sound, if anything the sound got a lot meatier with more depth and scale, taking over the speakers was a sense that the notes never stopped playing and as the lp progressed, the little funky guitar notes every few seconds, the strumming away was captured very well - again at this point the cartridge broke in yet again however as of yet no real soundstage. Clarity remained so I knew this hurdle had passed. Again the needledrop worked very well and the sound I got back from my trusty Yamaha was impressive (from both Hard Drive play and CD).
Final LP - Giocondas Smile by Manos Hatzidakis produced by Quincy Jones. Again I chose this release for a reason, notably the music represents one of the most amazing fusion recordings I have ever heard, a mix of early 60's pop/classical guitar and phenomenal use of a Harpsichord, the music is full of depth and borders between modern classical and fusion. It also represented another chance to play something different and once again test this 'budget' turntable. For this release I have an original 1966 print from EMI Greece.
the sound produced was very clean and clear and as it was a classical release had likely received more 'superior production' techniques than usual releases of the time. The first point that struck me was the in fact the soundstage which was becoming more apparant, everything seemed to play with a relaxed amount of ease, simply blowing through vast gaps of air in the studio/hall and being reproduced through this turntable, percussion sounded deep withouth being overly aggressive (need to check rock music later), instruments like clarinets, flute where all well played but what struck me more than the soundstage and the ease was the level of quality revealed when the orchestra would unite in pieces and submerge from single instruments into one, for example 5/6 violins vs the one harp, the one harpsichord, beautiful and completely mesmorising, (I admit to bias as the albumn really is sheer class for anyone interested in this style of music). Harps sounded clear and detailed.
Track 3-4 had more of a pop sound to the classical music and this worked well also however I found that when 2 instruments play the same piece together (in this case a lute and a harpischord) it was not so clear as the rest of the release. Slow violin pieces sounded beautiful and almost caressing I was very moved by it. The ending to track 4 with the harpsichord solo is nothing short of sublime, one of the few 20 second pieces I can say really is amazing and it came across beautifully - again as with the previous LP I heard no further break in which was a little dissapointing
Next and in brief, I played a 90's triple compilation of 60's folk music and was overall not impressed with anything I heard, most of the tracks were 63-72, nothing stood out or sounded good, but I wonder if this had more to do with the lp's being a bad print (evident in 90's releases overall). I will test this out in the coming weeks and update you all as I am assuming irrespective of any further cartridge break ins it will not improve the sound - everything simply sounded flat as if the entire sound spectrum had been reduced by 20%.
Finally I played a few 45's - admittedly these were not in the best condition. I do not think this machine is suited to playing 45's, apart from the loudness issue when playing (about a 30% jump) everything felt a little rushed - possibly I did not have luck changing the belt drive. For myself however I do not have many 45 singles.
I will update once I play more tracks, but so far for the price range this is WAY beyond my expectations and far superior to the RPM4 with Grado Gold that I purchased for a similar price in 2002. The listening continues but I do have to say either I totally wrecked my RPM4 or Rega have produced a system that is way above and beyond what I expected at this price point. Even at this early stage I would argue it is the Rega as I still have my needledrops from 2002 (I will dig them out and compare). One other point about the Rega it produces a very nice vinyl sound, when deciding between the Clearaudio and the Rega 5, despite the Clearaudio winning on looks (hands down) I wanted a turntable that sounded like a turntable should, the Rega does that for me with mild pick up of the inner groove at the start of each LP and between tracks. I would say any pops, hisses etc are at an overall minimum however most of my lp's are played 2-3 times at most as I always needledrop everything. My main aim with the turntable was to capture the depth and feel that sound is streaming at you via the air space in front of you. So far this TT does that. Even on my CD transfers everything sounds like a record should.
If anyone is interested, I did finally put the lid on today and as with the overall build of the machine I did not think it was so great, for some reason it does not seem to stay fitted in although it takes a small effort to take out.
Hope someone - anyone - enjoyed!
davidro
Lunatic Member
Thanks for detailed & helpful review Dashdoul. Well-enjoyed here.
I once had a P1 and it seems Rega didn't really improve much in terms of the build quality at least with their lower class, which is a bummer as you'd expect 'Made in England' (same with RP1?) would have to be better than typical 'Made in China'.
They do sound however quite 'nice'. And if it's the warmish, 'vinyl' sound I think Rega does the job pretty well. Sounds like RP1 further improved in this respect. And I seem to recall even P1 did pretty good job with inner groove reading rather surprisingly.
I wonder how much the RRP will go for where I live - Aussie (if ever released!).
I once had a P1 and it seems Rega didn't really improve much in terms of the build quality at least with their lower class, which is a bummer as you'd expect 'Made in England' (same with RP1?) would have to be better than typical 'Made in China'.
They do sound however quite 'nice'. And if it's the warmish, 'vinyl' sound I think Rega does the job pretty well. Sounds like RP1 further improved in this respect. And I seem to recall even P1 did pretty good job with inner groove reading rather surprisingly.
I wonder how much the RRP will go for where I live - Aussie (if ever released!).
Bob_in_OKC
Addicted Member
I'd like to have an RP1 but I don't see it ever happening, since I already have a P5. When I bought the P5, I sort of thought it would be a step along the way to greater heights, perhaps Clearaudio or VPI. After several months now with the P5, I'm beginning to think it could be where I stop and call it good.
fyi - brief update.
Still going very good.
-Deck struggles with bad 90's pressings more-so than bad 80's/70's/60s etc pressings
-70's pressings so far are coming out the best, irrespective of music/label.
-Apart from beyond playing, the system does well with loud pops and clicks.
-some 60's material can sound slightly compressed.
-modern pop music/sounds are not for this TT, they all sound weaker and shallower than before, (not my concern thankfully).
-seems a lot depends on the basis of the overall print of the LP as oppose to the system. The system simply brings the best out of the record as it can within its abilities.
-percussion - managed to finally play the 'Z' soundtrack from 1969 never ever heard percussion come across so aggressive and clear - beautiful sound, made me want to start banging something!
Overall very pleased with the sound and have probably now fully broken in as I have transfered over some 50 LP's including some doubles. I even manged to locate my old RPM4 needledrops to CD - overall the REGA offers a more clear yet meaty sound, otherwise the differences are more subtle.
davidro thank you for your message - the build quality is indeed bad, this unit needs a sand box or something. It feels almost like solid lego. I would have prefered to spend an extra £50.00 and have received something a little solid, but then I don't determine the price points. The lid is a joke and may prove an issue should I decide to sell on, I can not see it lasting.
Overall so far, very good and an excellent purchase pound for pound.
Rega RP1 bought Nov 2010 - total cost (TT & Isolation) £380.00 - more than I expected from a TT at this price.
Project RPM4 bought Sept 2002 - total cost (TT & Isolation & Grado Gold) £520.00 - dissapointing purchase and sound below what I was expecting.
Rega wins hands down on the sound, loses on the build quality yet the tonearm on the REGA is superior.
If anyone has any specific queries please feel free to ask or PM me
thanks!
Still going very good.
-Deck struggles with bad 90's pressings more-so than bad 80's/70's/60s etc pressings
-70's pressings so far are coming out the best, irrespective of music/label.
-Apart from beyond playing, the system does well with loud pops and clicks.
-some 60's material can sound slightly compressed.
-modern pop music/sounds are not for this TT, they all sound weaker and shallower than before, (not my concern thankfully).
-seems a lot depends on the basis of the overall print of the LP as oppose to the system. The system simply brings the best out of the record as it can within its abilities.
-percussion - managed to finally play the 'Z' soundtrack from 1969 never ever heard percussion come across so aggressive and clear - beautiful sound, made me want to start banging something!
Overall very pleased with the sound and have probably now fully broken in as I have transfered over some 50 LP's including some doubles. I even manged to locate my old RPM4 needledrops to CD - overall the REGA offers a more clear yet meaty sound, otherwise the differences are more subtle.
davidro thank you for your message - the build quality is indeed bad, this unit needs a sand box or something. It feels almost like solid lego. I would have prefered to spend an extra £50.00 and have received something a little solid, but then I don't determine the price points. The lid is a joke and may prove an issue should I decide to sell on, I can not see it lasting.
Overall so far, very good and an excellent purchase pound for pound.
Rega RP1 bought Nov 2010 - total cost (TT & Isolation) £380.00 - more than I expected from a TT at this price.
Project RPM4 bought Sept 2002 - total cost (TT & Isolation & Grado Gold) £520.00 - dissapointing purchase and sound below what I was expecting.
Rega wins hands down on the sound, loses on the build quality yet the tonearm on the REGA is superior.
If anyone has any specific queries please feel free to ask or PM me
thanks!
Daysleeper
New Member
I usually run my turntable through my CD Player speakers (I know I know, not the greatest idea I'm sure) and was wondering if I would just be good to go with that or if I need to get a preamp for this TT.
My apologies if that sounds like a noob question, but I'm looking to upgrade from Audio T. PL50
I'm finding the RP1 here in Toronto for $399 (plus $100 giftcard towards any vinyl) which seems like a solid deal.
My apologies if that sounds like a noob question, but I'm looking to upgrade from Audio T. PL50
I'm finding the RP1 here in Toronto for $399 (plus $100 giftcard towards any vinyl) which seems like a solid deal.
