A pleasant series of unexpected events saw an interesting little beauty arrive today in the form of a brand spanking new RP8 from Rega. Thank you Alleycat!
Packaging was typically Rega - nothing unusual here. What lay inside was less so.
The RP8 has some unusual traits in the plinth design. It?s is constructed from a strange foam composite with an acrylic shell, and also is in two completely separate pieces that fit together in a jigsaw puzzle kind of way - an inner and an outer.
The composite make-up is complimentary to Rega?s lightweight plinth philosophy, and the two piece implementation allows the inner plinth with all the vital components to be isolated from the outer section which serves as the foundation for the dust cover, preventing unwanted vibrations making their way into the bearing and platter.
The complete plinth has three feet, but is interesting in that the inner plinth feet run through the centre of the outer plinth feet, maintaining an air gap between them when centered. It?s a little more complicated than that... but that?s the basic concept.
These lightweight plinths are easily moved on their stand, so I prefer to use machined metal disks with a recess in to locate the feet and give a more solid feel and placement of the turntable, show here with only the centre plinth on the stand.
This did cause a slight problem in that the outer plinth was now not going to align in height with the centre plinth. A simple mod was to add some shims to each of the three machined screws that attach the outer plinth feet... problem solved.
Now securely in place and perfectly aligned, unpack and place the platter.
The platter itself is rather beautiful. Three pieces of glass perfectly laminated to form the typical hollowed out acrylic shape. Nicely done!
The intended MC cartridge install posed an unexpected issue with a dead channel... so I had to revert to my MM Goldring 1040 with around 30 hours on.
As is, - she is sounding really great, but do have my heart set on finding a good MC cartridge in low output guise.
Very happy with this purchase!
Packaging was typically Rega - nothing unusual here. What lay inside was less so.
The RP8 has some unusual traits in the plinth design. It?s is constructed from a strange foam composite with an acrylic shell, and also is in two completely separate pieces that fit together in a jigsaw puzzle kind of way - an inner and an outer.
The composite make-up is complimentary to Rega?s lightweight plinth philosophy, and the two piece implementation allows the inner plinth with all the vital components to be isolated from the outer section which serves as the foundation for the dust cover, preventing unwanted vibrations making their way into the bearing and platter.
The complete plinth has three feet, but is interesting in that the inner plinth feet run through the centre of the outer plinth feet, maintaining an air gap between them when centered. It?s a little more complicated than that... but that?s the basic concept.
These lightweight plinths are easily moved on their stand, so I prefer to use machined metal disks with a recess in to locate the feet and give a more solid feel and placement of the turntable, show here with only the centre plinth on the stand.
This did cause a slight problem in that the outer plinth was now not going to align in height with the centre plinth. A simple mod was to add some shims to each of the three machined screws that attach the outer plinth feet... problem solved.
Now securely in place and perfectly aligned, unpack and place the platter.
The platter itself is rather beautiful. Three pieces of glass perfectly laminated to form the typical hollowed out acrylic shape. Nicely done!
The intended MC cartridge install posed an unexpected issue with a dead channel... so I had to revert to my MM Goldring 1040 with around 30 hours on.
As is, - she is sounding really great, but do have my heart set on finding a good MC cartridge in low output guise.
Very happy with this purchase!
