The iconic Rega Planar 3 turntable has been around since introduction in 1977. The most recent editions are the P3 or RP3.
Thus, there are 30 to 40 year old Rega Planar turntables now in need of restoration.
This Planar 3 is from early-1980s, fitted with a Linn LV-V tonearm (and an un-branded Japanese moving magnet cartridge).
In 1990, Stereophile’s Dick Olsher declared that the AURA turntable offered:
…..borderline Class A performance….. I’m not letting the Aura out of my grasp. It’s one hell of a ‘table and one that I’d be perfectly happy with until the end of time.
In 2008, Dave Whittaker made his last AURA. Incorporating many improvements over 20+ years, his later AURAs Continue reading
The Aura turntable was designed by New Zealander, Dave Whittaker and was manufactured in NZ and Australia over a period of 20 years from the mid 1980s.
This beautiful example of the Aura, is still in use in California at the home of Skipper Wise – musician, recording artist and co-founder of Blue Microphones.
Skipper’s interesting story about his Aura TT tells us also about the affable and gracious man that Dave Whittaker was: Continue reading
This guy costs US$395 / £198 – not a small sum, but in hi-fi terms, a bargain I’d suggest.
The current Rega tonearms are descendants of the original legendary RB250/300 tonearms introduced in 1983. They still sound excellent. And importantly I think, sound a lot like real music.
I owned (and enjoyed) a Linn Sondek with Ittok tonearm from the same period, for over 10 years, but I don’t remember the Ittok sounding this much fun! Continue reading
These Magnetic Feet are a recent update for the Trans-Fi Salvation turntable.
The original rubber shock-absorbing feet can be replaced with sets of opposing ring-magnets – ‘Mag-Lev’ (magnet levitation) feet.
To my humble ear, this is a significant advancement and highly recommended. Continue reading
From quite a few years ago, this was my version of a Uni-pivot tonearm design by the late Dave Whittaker, creator of the Aura Turntable.
Dave knew that wood would provide good damping – he chose to use lightweight Balsa wood.
He thought also that the open truss structure would be low in resonances. Continue reading
This is a follow-up to my Terminator linear tracking tonearm post in last Feb.
I mentioned Effective Mass and how it differs significantly in the horizontal and vertical planes.
Poul Ladegaard’s “Tangential Tonearm” experimental work is informative here. Continue reading
