I just had to laugh at this......

[Marco]

http://www.whetstoneaudio.com/?p=1755

From the article:


Rega’s upgraded and improved upon “white belt” is no longer a limited edition and they lowered the price to $59. SERIOUS upgrade indeed! It’s made of pure rubber and has much tighter tolerances than the standard belt.


....as opposed to what, exactly? Kid-on rubber? :lol:

:scratch:

Apart from that, what's this white belts are better than black belts bollocks? It's meant to be audio, not bloody Judo! :eyebrows:

I used to admire Rega as a decent down to earth, bullshit-free British hi-fi company, but recently with them making nonsense like this, they've starting to slip down in my estimation......

Views?

Marco.

P.S The best belt of course is no belt ;)

[hifi_dave]

The Rega white belt is an upgrade on the black belt. A small but noticeable improvement and well worth the extra £8 over the standard £12 belt.

There is a short review in the November Stereophile which explains the differences quite well.

The white belt will be standard on some of the new Rega turntables due out next year.

[markf]

A while back Clearaudio changed from black belts to "silent belts" which I think are made
of silicon, they aren't white more of a cloudy clear color, I replaced my original black belts
with these primarily because it was about the right time and secondly I wanted to try them.
It's difficult to tell if they really are better but one advantage they have is that the black belts
used to leave a black line around the frosted acrylic platter the clear belts don't plus
I think they look better.

[Reid Malenfant]

Anyone seen a rubber tree being 'milked'? The rubber is white in colour ;) That only changes to different colours when other crap is added to colour it..

I think Marcos' comment of "no belt" still might be best though :eyebrows:

[Alex_UK]

Anyone seen a rubber tree being 'milked'? The rubber is white in colour ;)

Yeah, I saw that video back in the 80s. Oh, hang on, no, maybe that was ANOTHER video I'm thinking of! :lol:

[DSJR]

NAS have used a silicon stretchproof compound for decades now...

[The Grand Wazoo]

I think Marcos' comment of "no belt" still might be best though :eyebrows:

Maybe, but not with a Rega, eh?
They're not that bad, surely.

[Marco]

Lol... You have to laugh at the "It's made of pure rubber" remark though, and the claim that this wee white belt is a "SERIOUS upgrade" :lol:

There's a saying in Glasgow that goes: 'Yer a pure belter'. I'll leave you to judge whether it's a term of endearment or not!

Whatever keeps folk happy and out of mischief, eh? ;)

Marco.

[Gdg]

Marco, last week I was talking with a guy who likes to build his own turntables, both belt drive or DD.
He said to me that rubber is the worst material for belts, since it is much too elastic, so the major upgrade that you can do with belt drive TT is using a "silk" belt, just because silk is not elastic at all. He said too the best one is the hard-to-find surgical silk.
Maybe it's just an opinion, but I think it makes a lot of sense...

[DSJR]

Not when you're using the cheapo Airpax motor which vibrates badly without severe tuning. Cord drives are fine of the platter is heavy and the motor has its vibrations damped out, but what about the join affecting Wow? Hang on, I've just answered it with the heavy platter comment.

I understand Rega are now using 24V DC motors on the P3/24 upwards which may be better and anyway, if the belt is made properly, it isn't a bad way of doing it - I mean, no stray eddy-currents needing a £200+ copper mat to sort them :eyebrows:


A properly set up and isolated Rega deck has a fast and quite tactile quality to the sound, very different from the mid-bass thumpy quality that some "wooden plinthed" older direct drive decks could have. I reckon you have to go either of two ways, very heavy indeed, or light and rigid.......

[Beobloke]

The fact is that the belt is the weakest link in a belt drive system and the better made and more consistent it is, the better the turntable will sound. Try sticking any old rubber band on one and you'll see what I mean!

Whether there is a smidgen of marketing "exaggeration" in Rega's new belt I do not know, but if it is more consistently made and less prone to stretching unevenly, it should be a worthy upgrade.

As a footnote, I'm personally rather partial to a good thread drive deck. In particular I spent a while a couple of years ago with Scheu Analog's Diamond turntable and this has the sort of bass heft and stability that might have any nearby Technics SL-1200s looking a bit worried! ;)

[Seth=L]

LOL @ "pure rubber".

[colinB]

To be fair to Rega, i read once that terry bateman thought the new PSU for the Planar made a bit of difference but wasnt necessary.

Talk about not blowing your trumpet.

[DSJR]

Rega are a mixture of old smug sanctimonious hippies and new, freeer thinking sales and design guys. It's what makes them the unique company they are..

Seriously, Rega wouldn't go to the trouble to market a different belt if they didn't think it improved their decks' performance. In the same way, I now see a Mark Grant style mains lead on their accessories list, priced at MG-plus-modest-dealer-markup levels, to go with their Klotz/Neutrik based "Couple" interconnect. I'm sure it works very well. The price is out of most people's comfort zone, but the valve output Isis CD player is supposedly a Naim 555 beater for a mere £6K and it's one hifi item I've been itching to hear for ages..

I like Rega products very much, and their spares and service has always been second to none. Their old turntable range was heavily in competition with Pro-ject in recent years (this latter firm make good decks, although their better ones are to fit changing market trends I think, rather than advancing the art of vinyl reproduction), but if reports on the RP1 are anything to go by, they may well have some new bargains on their hands once the new range fleshes out.

[Marco]

Dave, like you, I admire Rega as a company (if more hi-fi companies were like them the industry would be in a far better state than it is), and yes, they make some good products at sensible prices.

I've also known Paul Darwin (ex-Naim) for years, the main sales guy there now. He is a top bloke (with a capital 'T') and someone I have a lot of time for. A more genuine audio and music enthusiast you're unlikely to meet.

However, listening to the P3-24/TT PSU of my mate's the other night I'm afraid simply reinforced my opinion of low-mass belt-drive T/Ts, which is that they are fundamentally flawed.

Entry to mid-level Regas and Pro-jects are fine as an introduction to vinyl for people who don't take it that seriously, but a hi-end hi-fi source they are not - unless a decent cartridge is fitted to replace the, quite frankly, shocking MM cartridges that are supplied as standard. I'm sure that would make a big difference, but how far it would go to creating anything like a level playing field with a stock Techie, let alone a highly modified one, remains to be seen.

What was interesting, when I visited Mike the other night, was that when I got there and he played the P3, I initially thought it was not too bad - a bit soft and opaque sounding, but reasonably musical, and we enjoyed listening to a few albums on it before swapping over to the Techie.

When we did that, however, the difference was night and day, with the Techie throwing out huge slabs of detail, along with a massively wide soundstage and deep and extended, sphincter-tight bass, that the P3 hadn't even hinted at. And like I said, that was just with using a stock 103 cartridge, through the Lentek head amp, into the MM boards in Mike's NAC102. I left the SPU/A23 SUT at home.

Even Mike commented that it made his little Sonus Faber stand-mounts sound massive! :eek:

Although it wasn't until later in the evening, once our ears had become attuned to the presentation of the Techie, that it really hit home how far a 'budget' Rega is behind it, when we swapped back to the P3 and played the same music we had just been listening to on my deck. Mike's system sounded quite literally as if someone had draped a pair of curtains over the speakers and put bungs in our ears! The P3 in comparison now just sounded broken.

It was *that* experience which really hammered home how far I've taken the performance of the Techie from the days when I was using low-mass belt-drive T/Ts. This is why I like doing these sorts of tests - because it acts as a reality check and confirms that I haven't been deluding myself with the effect of all the modifications I've carried out on the Techie, and gone more backwards than forwards.

No doubt though that fitting a white belt to the Rega would change things dramatically - especially one made from PURE RUBBER! :lol:

;)

Marco.

[chris@panteg]

Hi Marco

Am i right in thinking you have a greater understanding of pure Rubber than most folk here;) i can't see any point in using it for Audio myself , when its optimum use is already well founded ' her hum:eyebrows:

[Marco]

Hi Adam,


The fact is that the belt is the weakest link in a belt drive system and the better made and more consistent it is, the better the turntable will sound. Try sticking any old rubber band on one and you'll see what I mean!


I totally agree, but some of the claims being made in the article are completely beyond any credibility. Especially considering that the stock Rega belt is far from being "any old rubber band".


Whether there is a smidgen of marketing "exaggeration" in Rega's new belt I do not know, but if it is more consistently made and less prone to stretching unevenly, it should be a worthy upgrade.


Yes undoubtedly to the latter, and yes even more I'm sure to the bit in bold! :eyebrows:


As a footnote, I'm personally rather partial to a good thread drive deck. In particular I spent a while a couple of years ago with Scheu Analog's Diamond turntable and this has the sort of bass heft and stability that might have any nearby Technics SL-1200s looking a bit worried!

I totally agree - I love good thread-drive T/Ts, and the Scheu Analogs are amongst my favourites (along with the Platine Verdier), but those are 'high-mass' T/Ts with huge platters and motors to drive them, which address many of the failings of low-mass belt-drives with puny PSUs and Airpax motor units, more likely built by Fisher Price - and the speed instability (and resulting sonic negatives that go with it)..... ;)

*That*, me old matey, is the difference!

However, those high-mass thread-drives are huge, bulky, things that dominate a room and take up lots of space, which is fine if such issues don't present a problem. I simply prefer the more visually 'compact' solution of a Techie, which when suitably modified, gets you to a comparable place, sonically, as the aforementioned high-mass thread-drives, for sometimes considerably less money - and for me that is a win-win! :cool:

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Marco

Am i right in thinking you have a greater understanding of pure Rubber than most folk here i can't see any point in using it for Audio myself , when its optimum use is already well founded ' her hum

Hehehe.... You're not wrong, Chris, and the resident 'Mistress of Pain' in my leetle dungeon-ette would no doubt also agree! :lol: :eyebrows: ;)

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Giovanni,


Marco, last week I was talking with a guy who likes to build his own turntables, both belt drive or DD.
He said to me that rubber is the worst material for belts, since it is much too elastic, so the major upgrade that you can do with belt drive TT is using a "silk" belt, just because silk is not elastic at all. He said too the best one is the hard-to-find surgical silk.
Maybe it's just an opinion, but I think it makes a lot of sense...

Sorry, I missed your post earlier....

Yes, I totally agree. Experience tells me that, as Adam says, the material T/T belts are constructed from has a considerable influence on the performance a belt-drive turntable.

However, I don't believe that this new white belt is sufficiently different to the stock Rega item to make the dramatic sonic improvement claimed. *That* is the point I'm making, especially when the new belt is said as being made of "PURE RUBBER"! :mental:

Had the new belt been made of surgical silk, or whatever, it might have been a different kettle of fish! ;)

Marco.

[chris@panteg]

Naughty ' Naughty :)

Actually Marco , i think for myself its about time i compared my deck against a good belter ! i was thinking my two closest friends and drinking buddies ' Allan ' has a pre cirkus LP12/Ittok/ATF5 and John ' a Voyd with ref bearing /platter Helius Orion and IO .

A bake off between all three using John's ' Audio by design system , i need to know that the last 2 years is not a waste of time and money ! and i'm deluding myself , will put it to them tonight over a few strong ales :cool:

[hifi_dave]

To my knowledge, Rega haven't made any great claims for the £20 drive belt other than it provides "greater speed stability", which it does and that it is an "upgrade", which it is.

When you consider that it is only £8 more than the standard belt and that it does improve the sound, it is good value IMO.

Rega have never been rip-off merchants and they aren't grossly over charging for this upgrade as other companies might.

I have sold around 25 of these belts and half of these have been after a brief demonstration against a new stock black belt. The improvements are clearly audible and well worth £20 of anyone's money, I would suggest.

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

I don't have a problem with that, and agree. It's not the claims Rega are making necessarily, it's the utterly ridiculous ones on review blogs, such as I linked to earlier, that need to be, shall we say, somewhat 'tempered' with a healthy dose of reality! ;)

Chris,

Nice one. I'd recommend you do that, as it's something everyone should do from time to time to see if they're going in the right direction or not with their T/Ts. I've always found the experience to be informative and educational.

Enjoy, and please let us know what the outcome is :cool:

Marco.

[DSJR]

Marco, so you know "Darwin" eh? I really must be on my best behaviour then, as he knows me and mine too well :lol:

I suggested in another thread just how lucky we are to have the turntables we have, as there's a bit of a gulf between a £300 deck and a £2K one. If your mate has a Rega cartridge in his P3/24, i really would suggest that it's a bottleneck, albeit one which won't damage his records as the diamonds are good swiss made examples IIRC. i do have a mk1 Elys mounted up in the R200 headshell and it sounds just as you describe - clogged and thick-toned (yes I know it's not optimally three point mounted, but it's just as I remember it).

I don't wish to go on about it, but a properly mounted Rega with a more neutral cartridge (AT440/Goldring 2200?) is still a very fine way to play records I think. In the good old bad old days, a totally stock Techie was about this level IIRC, but it's been a long time and I haven't done the comparison in a very long time now.