Beat me to it Rich, cheers for taking the time to start ther thread off.
Brian and I have similar Rega Kit, main difference is my RS3 speakers but his Rega's share the same house sound.
Between us we've tried all sorts of stuff and we always "sanity checked" the results with each other. We listened to the changes in each others systems too. I'll add to Rich's thoughts below;
Interconnect – Rega Couple (Clone) The IC I’m currently using is a homemade clone of a Rega Couple which I bought off a member here for 15quid if I remember rightly. It uses Klotz AC110 cable and Puresonic RCA plugs which are widely available and reasonably priced.
Had a loan of a set of the Clone cables from Rich, sounded great. An improvement actually over my Mark Grant HD2000's in my Rega system.
Was surprised at that to be honest, but I think its a case of system dependancy and its interesting that Brian thought the same when he heard the comparison.
Compared to the original Rega Couple cables though...we felt they were not quite as good. Not a lot in it, but they were better.
I was happy to pass on the 2000's without thinking I was compromising on sound anywhere.
I use the official Rega Couple cables and have no desire to change.
Speaker Cable
For this I settled on the excellent value Rega Quattro Cable from these guys, it comes as a bi-wire cable and is easily split for single wiring. I’ve not had the means to try the much adored Tellurium Q Black which have been suggested but they will be tried at some point.
Oh..speaker cable. Now there's a thorny one!
In my system, I originally had Mogami 2972 recc'ed to me by the dealer who sold me the RS3's. Sounded great, overall sound really open dynamic and musical. Then Ali Tait came along...
Dac bake off at mine, Ali had brought his TQ Black for me to hear.
When we plumbed it in ALL THREE OF US just looked at each other, not believing the level improvement this speaker cable had made.
Everything was better - everything. The RS3's now sounded like a more expensive set of speakers, a couple of levels up in fact.
Everything was just.....right.
Brian of course wanted a set, but we wanted to find out if we could get the "TQ Effect" with a cheaper cable, perhaps Rega's own for the "Rega Synergy?"
We tried the Quattro...good but the magic was missing. Not night and day difference but you could tell something had been taken away and you missed it.
Brian tried Black Rhodium cable, again nothing oin the TQ but I think (and Brian can confirm) that he preferred it to the Quattro?
Nope, TQ Black for Rega speakers is the way to go, Brian got himself a set and hasn't wanted to change since.
Rich, maybe David Brooks at MCRU can do you a loan set for a couple of weeks or whatever? No harm asking, Dave's a good guy.
Mains Cables
For the mains I settled on some homemade clones of Rega’s own high end mains cables which are apparently shipped with the flagship Osiris amplifier.
I bought an official Rega cable to try (was using a couple of Frank's (Effem) Krystal Kables Titans.
The Rega was better so Brian and I set about recreating them.
Brian had ordered some Lapp cable from MCRU and made me a clone cable to try using a silver plated plug and Wattgate IEC I had lying unused.
He was making up cables for himself at the same time, trying out different plugs, IEC's etc. For an indication of how good the Rega clone cable was in a Rega system it bettered Brian's DIY Furutech monster, gold plated plug,IEC and Furutech silver plated power cable.
I could see he was disappointed after having built it, but was happy to know he could build better for a lot cheaper!
Interestingly, he found standard brass plugs, not silver, rhodium plated or whatever made the best sounding cable...
With this in mind, I questioned the use of MK Toughplugs in the cable.
Without plated pins its just a normal plug really, with the crappy wee grubscrews connecting the wire to the pins.
I tried using the older style MK Smartplugs, which have MUCH better internal biding post type internal connects you can really screw the cable down with. This improved the sound of the cable over the Toughplugs.
Other Bits
I added a Musical Fidelity V-Link II. The Rega DAC has a fine USB input but this just seemed to bring out the best of everything from the DAC.
I too used a VLink II, running USB from server to SPDIF to the Dac.
A good upgrade though Rich is to use the VLink 192.
It uses completely different circuitry inside, USB chips different, proper Galvanic shielding the whole schmeer. Its noticably better sounding, even on 16/44 stuff.
If you have a lot of HD tracks you owe it to yourself to have a listen if you can.
A good usb and digital cable are vital of course if your using a converter and (unfortunately) adds another two steps in the chain as well as costing more.
The Rega USB input though is EXTREMELY good we found, the only snag is that it only does up to 16/48 which is not ideal if you have a lot of HD music.
That said, if your playback software allows you to downsample anything over 16/48 (I use JRiver) it still sounds tremendous.
Brian was using a Vlink II (not a 192) and actually prefers the sound of the USB input.
I was over at his last week and updated his Jriver software and applied a few new system tweaks and its the best I've heard his system sound...wonderful system.
Finally a few thoughts on set up
Through trail and error I found the Brio R sounded best when plugged directly into the wall, all the other components were connected to my Tacima Mains Conditioner. The RS3 speakers responded well to being placed on those granite worktop savers available for £7 a piece from Argos. They also responded well to being slightly tilted back, not too much though. I have the side firing woofers pointing outwards.
The Rega amp and Dac are unfussy about where they sit. As an experiment I sat them on the carpet and there was no difference I could hear. Good solid (and heavy!) casework.
The amp responds more than the Dac to changing power cables, it really likes good clean power fed to it.
All my kit is polugged into a Belkin PF30 power conditioner apart form the amp, which is plugged directly into the wall socket.
Having replaced my wall sockets with unswitched Crabtree ones, I noticed a marked improvement in the amp, not so much in the Dac.
The Dac sounds better plugged in to the PF30.
The RS3 speakers are unfussy about siting, but you get more from them when they are absolutely level and (in my room) tilting them back a few degrees so the tweeters are firing slightly upwards.
This was not a free tweak, it cost me 20p to sit 4 five pence pieces under the front spikes!
Having the bass units firing outwards was a no brainer in my case, having them inwards collapsed the soundstage and a lot of the clarity was lost.
So there you have it, I think we are pretty much sorted with the setup of our Rega systems...
though I hear on the grapevine Brian's working on a new mains block...Brian?
Hope there's some useful info in amongst my ramblings!
AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables