Do Rega 'tables run fast?

As well as the Beatles......

 

"Wild Things Run Fast"

 

mine measured at 33.4

 

This is an old thread, but I was thinking I had the same “my rega rep3 is running fast” when I recently tested it with the iPhone ap rpm. Nice app by the way. It was showing it running consistently about .5% fast. I was about to overcompensate and order the new neo to reign it in (I already have the TT PSU), but then I thought to test it with an album on, and the needle playing. It brought the speed down to within 1 hundreds of a percent of 33 1/3.

So, the lesson is don’t measure your table when it’s not playing. It will always run fast. The record and styles do creat some level of drag.

 

And those of us with trained ears notice the slightly too fast easily, and many of the Regas have micro-wavering on held piano and guitar solos. This drives me nuts. And it's not a belt drive problem either. I have heard many stable belt drives which didn't have this problem. I don't want my turntable editorializing on my music. I want my music and nothing which is not there. I want accurate and honest.

 

Drives me nuts too. One of feet on my Linn was loose for awhile and piano notes would waver. It’s really unsettling. Problem has been corrected and now rock solid.

 

Both of mine ran fast, I’m sensitive to pitch. Couldn’t get on with Rega.

 

Thankfully the mid level tables and up now have speed adjustment on the power supply.

 

I had a Planar 2 in the late '90s. It was fast. I had a 2016 Planar 3 that also ran fast. Still fast after a Groovetracer subplatter and white belt, but closer.

 

Belt drive turntables are always gonna have significant speed issues.

 

Not "significant" no, but can have some which can be easily corrected with a speed controller. DD can/do have cogging issues which is almost impossible to correct, short of buying another DD table........With the Cruise Control my table is constant at 3150Hz, without it about 3148-3149Hz.

 

My Planar 2 ran a little fast from the get go when new in 1993. But by 2013 on the original belt it had just about slowed to pitch! It was prone to a little wow and flutter too. Sounded nice though.

 

I can't think of a more appropriate response to this (and to Catcher10's point) than this quote pulled from Ed Selley's review of the Rega Planar 6 (which is belt drive).

"it offers superb pitch stability. Once the pause while the power supply performs its own checks finishes, the Rega spins up quickly and is utterly pitch stable. The review sample moved into the space previously occupied by the Technics SL-1200GR – pretty much the living embodiment of pitch stability – and it doesn’t feel compromised.

More importantly and beyond the basics, the Rega delivers a performance that is unusually good for a turntable at the price. When listening to the Technics, there is a sense that some of the qualities of the turntable make their way into the audible experience. As these qualities are wholly positive, this doesn’t matter – indeed, many listeners would actively seek them out. The Rega on the other hand, puts much less of itself into the presentation. Listening to Dead Can Dance’s Toward the Within – a record I have heard on a variety of turntables including the biblically expensive – and the Rega is impressively free of an obvious sonic fingerprint."

 

Not my experience

 

....to be fair, too fast is way preferable to too slow!

 

Yes - total agreement. This is exactly why I sold a Rega P3 that I had briefly many years ago. I could hear pitch fluctuations, particularly on sustained piano chords and higher guitar notes, not to mention, it spun a tad fast.

These days my main table is a Thorens TD-160 Super (restored/customized by Vinyl Nirvana) which has been totally stable and runs at the correct speed, which is proof that belt drives don't always have to be problematic in this area. The argument that belt drives are "always going to have significant speed issues" doesn't hold up in my experience.

 

Not to me. A tad slow sounds more real to me with more flesh and blood than a tad fast.
That said, 33.33 please.

 

One day this topic will go away........

The old 80s and 90s black plinth RB300 P3s had speed stability issues because they had a plastic pulley, the motor was inferior to the current 24 volt motor and the motor was suspended on a rubber belt and was not rigidly fixed to the plinth so it wobbled a bit during operation. Most of these did run fast, but it did give them a snappy upbeat sound and start off the popular (positive) Rega comments about pace, rhythme and timing and the classic "the Rega just gets my foot tapping". I think it also helped to cover up a little bit of the speed instability in these early models plus with no PSU back then for Rega the motor relied on mains power accuracy which can fluctuate either side quite a bit at times and in certain areas more than others, therefore it made sense to tune it a bit fast.

I have no experience with P3 2000s but i had a P3 24 TTPSU that ran at a consistent 33.6 and sounded great. Had a P5 TTPSU that ran at 34.2 (which was noticeable when running back to back with the afforementioned P3) and i got rid of it. My P7 ran dead on at 33.33 and my current P9 is also dead on at 33.33. Speed measured with an rpm laser pointer without an lp playing.

I do think Rega intentionally run the P3 and below faster and up to about 33.8 i think its ok for the average Joe. I know there are people who have RP8 horror stories approaching 34 rpm and thats rubbish for that level of table.

The good news is they have the new adjustable Neo PSU now so everything newer than a P3 24/P5 can be adjusted back to 33.33 no probs.

 

.......Can’t agree, my P3-24 ran fast, changing to the white upgrade belt didn’t help either. No amount of fettling helped. I am a fan of Regas phono-stages though.

 

Mine runs spot on. I added a Heed Orbit and have never looked back.

 

I have a 5 year old rp3 and here is my experience. I was using it with a TT PSU. When I discovered there are apps to measure speed, I tried both RPM and Turntabulator. RPM showed the table going faster than Turntabulator, so I did not know which to trust. Even at the fastest though, it was showing 34.5 without a needle drop. Turntabulator was showing about 33.8. So, I bit the bullet and bought a strobe platter with hand held strobe unit. It also showed the tt was about .3% fast. It also came with literature that said .3% is actually within spec.

But wait, there is more. Then I dropped a needle to see if it effected the speed. It did, but anywhere from .03 to .o5. I bought the new neo, and dialed I the speed so it was 33.3 when a needle was in the first grooves. Unfortunately, according to KAB and my later experience, the needle drag affect is at it’s max in the first grooves, and at its least in the final grooves. In other words, for a belt driven turntable there is no perfect answer to setting speed...but there is a good enough answer.

Given that KAB claimed my TT was actually somewhat fast, but within spec, I kind of wish I had not started this whole measurement thing. By the way, of the apps, Turntabulator seemed to be more accurate to the strobe to me (on an iPhone 7), then RPM

But wait, there is even more! I discovered a couple of years ago when I tried to fit a groovetracer Delrin platter, which is very big and has very tight tolerances, that my sub platter was somewhat unbalanced. It’s not a lot. A bible level shows it just a tiny bit off. Nonetheless, I’ve now ordered a tango spinner bearing housing, since their design allows them to adjust for Rega’s slightly skewed cut into the plinth.

So, I look back at the past month of tweaking, and have come to the conclusion that this hobby is probably not good for my sanity!

 

Planar 3. Clocked 33.45 with 2 devices. I am cool with that

 

Wouldn't it be better to run slightly faster as it has more of a chance of lasting longer?

 

How do you figure?