Turntable Reviews

Rega has not said that the 50th Anniversary Planar 3 will be limited to a certain number of units, only that production will cease at the end of 2023. Given what's on offer, I expect demand is strong. For $1695, you get a fully loaded Planar 3 in a special "walnut effect" finish with a 50th Anniversary model badge and a retro-style tinted dust cover. The package also includes the Neo PSU MK2 power supply (an option on other P3s), the Exact (Rega's best moving magnet cartridge), the aluminum motor-drive pulley from the Planar 6, and the Reference EBLT drive-belt upgrade. Normally, a standard Planar 3 with the Exact cartridge and none of those other features sells for $1595, so with the 50th Anniversary package you're getting the power supply upgrade, the pulley upgrade, the belt upgrade, and the special finish for just $100 more.

Setup: Because the 50th Anniversary Planar 3 is shipped as a complete package, the setup process is very simple. The three feet are not height adjustable, so you need to ensure that your shelf is already level or use something to prop up the feet as required. I find old CDs useful for this task, but drink coasters will do in a pinch. The cartridge comes pre-installed, and because the Exact uses Rega's proprietary three-point mounting, its position is fixed in Rega's preferred alignment. The RB330 tonearm uses a spring to apply the tracking force, so to install and position the counterweight, you set the down force dial to zero, balance the arm by adjusting the counterweight position, then turn the dial to the required tracking force (1.75gm for the Exact). I found that even with the antiskating slider set to zero, there was still some sideways pull, which can make balancing the arm a little tricky. I found it easier to turn the downforce dial to 1.75 then use my Riverstone Audio stylus force gauge to adjust the counterweight position to get that downforce.

The final setup tasks are to connect the Neo MK2 power supply to the back of the turntable and the signal cables to your phono preamp. As with all Rega tonearms, the tonearm is grounded to the outer conductor of the cable, so there is no fiddly, separate ground wire to connect to your preamp (footnote 4).

Rega has been accused of making their turntables run a little fast to get that toe-tappy, pacey sound. With the speed-adjustable Neo MK2 power supply, this isn't an issue. The 50th Anniversary Planar 3 arrives pre-adjusted at the factory to run perfectly on speed with your specific turntable. Still, the first thing I checked was the Planar 3's running speed. It was bang-on perfect, and according to the Shaknspin2 speed analyzer, subsidiary specifications were also excellent (fig.1).

At its core, this latest Planar 3 is nearly identical to the one HR wrote about in 2017, but the upgrades have ironed out most of the niggles Herb encountered. My main interest was to compare it to my 43-year-old Planar 3 to see how much more performance Rega has managed to wring out of the old girl over those decades.

I didn't have a second Exact cartridge to mount in my original Planar 3, so I used an Audio Note IQ III, a moving magnet cartridge made for Audio Note by Goldring. The IQ III is a superb performer that sells for about twice the cost of the Exact. The two systems will sound different, but the cartridge shouldn't be a performance bottleneck. I also gave the old Rega a full service, replacing the drive and the motor suspension belts and cleaning and lubricating the main bearing, following Rega's detailed instructions to the letter, using two drops of the specified 80-weight gear oil.

Thinking back to records that were in heavy rotation when I had my original Planar 3, I put on Elvis Costello's album Trust (F Beat XXLP 11 UK pressing) and was instantly transported to dorm room 711 in Syracuse University's Booth Hall, circa 1981. By the time I started side 2 and the song "New Lace Sleeves," the memories were flooding back via little details I listened for back then: the way the reverb behind EC's voice keeps shifting throughout the song, moving you from a close-up, intimate perspective to a wider, more open space towards the end of each verse. Drummer Pete Thomas's staccato figures were noteworthy, as was the way he changes to straight 4/4 beat to propel the song along as the verses progress.

Switching over to the 50th Anniversary Planar 3, it was instantly clear that there really has been a lot of progress since then. Just about every element of the sound has been improved, from the way Steve Nieve's organ sounded more in tune to how Bruce Thomas's plucked bass line has more meat around each note. EC's voice has always been tough to reproduce, especially his sibilant sounds, which on the wrong system can sound harsh and distorted. Some earlier Rega moving magnet cartridges can do exactly that, but with the Exact on the new Planar 3, the perspective was as clear as a freshly washed window, as smooth as a James Bond pickup line. The new Planar just sounds better sorted and like a coherent whole, providing a clearer perspective on the music making. This turntable has a real knack for allowing you to forget about audiophile affectations like imaging and soundstaging so you can just kick back and enjoy your records.

The Collaro Cloth Turntable Mat
In prior columns, I have described how fans of the Linn Sondek turntable can be a pretty fickle bunch. Should you propose any type of modification to factory doctrine, you'd better be sure it delivers the goods if you want to avoid the Linnie scorn. Not every modification, though, is rejected by loyalists; the Collaro Precision Cloth Turntable Mat has been getting quite a lot of approving buzz from the Linn crew, so I figured I should check it out.

Founded more than 100 years ago to manufacture spring motors for windup gramophones, by the 1960s, Collaro had become Britain's largest manufacturer of record changers, outpacing even Garrard. Nothing lasts forever, however, and after a series of mergers and acquisitions, Collaro ended up being owned by Philips, which shut the company down in 1974.

Fast-forward about 44 years. The Collaro brand was revived in 2018 by two audio enthusiasts, Chris Bentley and Colin Dent, to produce hi-fi accessories (footnote 5). Their first product, the Collaro Precision Cloth Turntable Mat, is aimed squarely at Linn LP12 users, and apart from its deep red color and bold Collaro logo, at first glance it seems similar to the Linn original. Closer examination shows that the Collaro has a significantly denser weave, which Dent described as 100% wool cloth that has been finished through a process called fulling, which preshrinks the material and provides a smooth, feltlike surface.

The Collaro is available through a handful of mostly Linn retailers here in the US or directly from the company in the UK. While the direct price for the red version is £99, there is no US distributor, so the price charged by US-based dealers may vary. A black version is also available, for £120, which Dent says offers identical performance; it costs a bit more due to lower sales volume. Collaro also makes a thicker mat in white called The Tempest, which Dent says is optimized for idler drive turntables,

The Linn LP12 is the Porsche 911 of the audio world in that over decades of production, almost every single part has been upgraded several times. Almost. One part that hasn't changed is its felt platter mat. I should say that they haven't changed much, or significantly. I have noticed that the latest Linn mats seem somewhat thinner than the mats made 40 years ago, but maybe I'm just imagining that. Compared to a recent-production Linn mat, the Collaro is slightly thinner still and, by my measurement, leaves the record surface about half a millimeter lower.

No doubt there's now someone in the back with their hand up desperate to point out that this tiny change in height will affect the stylus rake angle, which is true, but do the trig and you'll find that with a 9" tonearm, the difference is about 7.5 minutes of a degree; in other words, small enough to safely ignore (footnote 6).

I tried the Collaro mat on a mid-1980s LP12 with a Hercules power supply, Linn Ittok tonearm, and Lyra Delos moving coil cartridge. This proved to be one of the easiest comparisons ever, because all I had to do was take a few seconds to swap the mats back and forth and listen. While anyone who says the Collaro makes a massive difference is probably lying, or lacks a sense of proportion, I was able to hear small, repeatable improvements especially in bass definition and power, while the midrange became more focused and slightly less forward. Changes like this are most noticeable when you switch back to the original mat after spending some time with the upgrade. All of the changes I noticed were improvements. At £99, for an LP12 owner this seems like a no-brainer

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Footnote 4: In case you might be planning to someday substitute a low-output moving coil cartridge: This also means that the RB330 and other Rega tonearms are incompatible with current-mode phono preamps.

Footnote 5: Collaro Audio, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL52 2JN, UK. Tel: +44 345 388 2005. Web: collaroaudio.co.uk.

Footnote 6: In case it's been a long time since you took trig, that's about an eighth of a degree.