Good deal on a Rega?

[Jac Hawk]

I've just picked up a Planar 3 with an R200 arm and Linn K5 Cart for £50

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0616.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0616.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0618.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0618.jpg.html)

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0617.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0617.jpg.html)

The bad bit is that the tonearm anti skate belt has perished, which i'm lead to believe is a common problem on these arms, also there is no earth lead, however i heard that Rega used to wire it in to the phono leads, in any case does anyone know anybody in the north west that can sort this arm out i.e. rewire and new anti skate belt?

[Rothchild]

Nice one, that's a bit of a bargain IMO.

J9 at Audio Origami does the bias belts I believe and can rewire it at the same time (but it will cost considerably more than you paid for the deck)

Clean up the bearing, put a new set of rubber bands on it (motor suspension and drive belt) and see how you get on, you might not need to do the big rewire and belt job at all?

[Jac Hawk]

The belt's buggered and i don't know what sort of state the wiring's in so my thinking is get the arm serviced and sorted, any idea what the cost might be?

[Rothchild]

http://www.audioorigami.co.uk/tone-arm-rewires/

Dunno what he charges for the belt job, you can buy them on ebay for £14 but it's apparently quite a bugger of a job and is well worth doing the rewire at the same time, J9 clearly knows his way round this stuff and as it's one of those sort of jobs you'll only do once the value of putting yourself through the learning curve is limited IMO.

Edit: to be fair the belts are universally buggered it seems although it also appears that the majority have expired whilst set to a generally workable position, so unless you do a lot of antiskate tweaking it may well 'just work' for the large majority of setups.

[walpurgis]

I thought the R200 originally only came supplied on the Planar 2. I rebuilt my R200 and fitted a new bias belt. A bit of a fiddle and it's easy to lose the balls from the races.

http://i66.tinypic.com/2py6qsx.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/1zecgfq.jpg

[Jac Hawk]

Nice job Geoff, looks fiddly though, i see you've stuck a spacer in to tension the belt, i've seen a photo where a hole has been drilled and a grub screw used to the same effect

[walpurgis]

Yes. The trickiest bit is reassembling the arm and getting the plastic helical guide in the stem in the correct position for the bias to be correct.

[Jac Hawk]

just had a message back from jonny at audio origami, he doesn't do the anti skate belts anymore:rolleyes::rolleyes: any ideas?

[walpurgis]

I believe the repair has been done using strong nylon cord in the past. Some serious Googling may provide info.

The alternatives are to use an alternative means of applying bias, like a drop weight maybe. Or of course selling the arm as 'spares or repair', which to be honest, is what I'd do these days. I don't actually like the R200 much.

[Jac Hawk]

hmm i've had my eye on a linn basik LV V, would it be a worthy replacement and would i need to start cutting holes in the plinth?

[walpurgis]

The LV-V has different geometry and is not a 'drop in' job. An RB250 or RB300 would be the best bet.

If you bung the R200 on ebay, you'd maybe get £40 for it. That would go some way towards the cost.

[Rothchild]

The last one I saw on ebay went for closer to £80, so a good slice of something else.

The bias belts have vanished again, the do seem to come and go (the chap who sells them also provided the 'shim' to tension it up with) if you want to pursue it it's worth leaving a search for Rega R200 running and it'll come up on that - given that Geoff suggests it's not such a tough job I think I'll pick one up myself next time around.

[Jac Hawk]

Well after a chat with Johnnie, he's taken the arm in part ex on a brand new RB202, so a great result

[walpurgis]

Well after a chat with Johnnie, he's taken the arm in part ex on a brand new RB202, so a great result

Good. You'll be happy with that. :thumbsup:

[Jac Hawk]

Is there anyone in the UK makes plinths for the planar 3, i've seen some for sale on eBay, but they are overseas and i'd prefer dealing with someone in the uk, to be honest there doesn't look much to the regs plinths so maybe i could get a local carpenter to nock one up for me, any thoughts?

[walpurgis]

Not sure what you mean. The Planar 3 has a plinth :).

However, if you are after a heavyweight 'upgrade' job, I'd suggest caution. Every part of Rega decks is carefully selected to combine with its constituent components to sound good. As they do (at the price). I've not tried it, but my feeling is that a beefed up base/plinth will kill the vibrancy in the Rega sound.

[walpurgis]

Just a thought. More recent Rega turntables use a metal 'bracing plate' between the arm base and platter main bearing. Assuming they can be bought separately, adding one to your Planar 3 may be a sensible upgrade, as it should be compatible with the RB202, but ask Rega first obviously.

[Jac Hawk]

To be honest i was thinking about a birch ply plinth of the same thickness, but with a wood veneer, as i'm not keen on all that black

[walpurgis]

A birch ply base will change the sound characteristics of the turntable and it's not possible to anticipate what the effects may be.

There is an economical option though. Paint for refurbishing Melamine kitchen units, it comes in various colours. The Rega original turntable base has a melamine skin and is suitable for the type of paints used in kitchen unit refurbishment. These provide quite a tough finish, but if applied evenly will allow the original woodgrain texture to show.

[Truckletheuncivil]

Inspire hifi make plinths in birch ply with various veneers available. I've never heard one but they have a showroom where you can hear their stuff

[Bigman80]

Inspire hifi make plinths in birch ply with various veneers available. I've never heard one but they have a showroom where you can hear their stuff
Inspire TT are very good. Better than the stock version IMO. Also their Customer Service was very good too.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[cjm123]

Hi Mike,

Sorry late to this thread..story of my life but IMHO looks a bit of a steal and also a interesting project which I reckon will prove well worth the effort. So good luck and look forward to hearing/seeing how you get on with it.

Chris

[Jac Hawk]

Bit of an update, i've stripped the deck down to it's components, i figured that it's probably never been serviced and seeing as it came with the R200 arm would assume that it's an older deck, anyway i've cleaned the motor, baring and sub platter spindle, lubricated them and instead of using the rubber band to attach the motor, i've mounted it to the underside of the plinth with a sorbothane gasket, i've also replaced the pulley for a twin belt type and replaced the drive belts. i've got an rpm checker on my iPhone and it's running at 33.19 to 33.20 rpm, so nice and steady if a tad slow.

A couple of things though, the drive belts aren't particularly tight, which surprised me a bit, also how can i get the speed closer to 33.33rpm as it's running about 0.13 rpm too slow.

[Jac Hawk]

So after a bit of fiddling i've managed to get the speed just about bang on at 33.34rpm, i've got the arm fitted, cart mounted at set and it's all sounding sweet:):)
Here's some pics

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0619.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0619.jpg.html)http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0620.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0620.jpg.html)http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb371/jachawk9000/IMG_0622.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/jachawk9000/media/IMG_0622.jpg.html)