[Colmsport]

Evening all,

Any folk on here into their Hifi, specifically vinyl?

I’m considering upgrading my current turntable, a Rega Planar 1, to a Rega Planar 3. The 3 seems to get rave reviews, but what I want to know is if the improvement in quality / sound is really worth the near £700 outlay…

I know I should really go to a store & ask for a demo, but haven’t really got the opportunity at the moment, plus would rather hear some genuine experience from people running the equipment.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[MrManor]

My dad still has Now 4 on vinyl.

[Eddamoo]

I'm definitely into my HiFI but never had the space for a turntable. I would've thought the improvements from the turntable itself would be modest and your major gains would come from a stylus upgrade?

Hope you get some real world feedback but you may need to pop over to the Avforum?

[isleaiw1]

Originally Posted by Colmsport

Evening all,

Any folk on here into their Hifi, specifically vinyl?

I’m considering upgrading my current turntable, a Rega Planar 1, to a Rega Planar 3. The 3 seems to get rave reviews, but what I want to know is if the improvement in quality / sound is really worth the near £700 outlay…

I know I should really go to a store & ask for a demo, but haven’t really got the opportunity at the moment, plus would rather hear some genuine experience from people running the equipment.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

One of the guys on the football forum is a vinyl nerd and said this in one thread....when he had bought a new deck...

Yes with a Linn Akurate LP12. I would have liked the Linn Klimax but at £18k too much for me. Rega Planar 3 is a decent deck

He bought the Rega Planar 3 for his boys bedroom afterwards so I guess it must be decent having looked up how much that Linn deck is!

[Colmsport]

Originally Posted by isleaiw1

One of the guys on the football forum is a vinyl nerd and said this in one thread....when he had bought a new deck...

Yes with a Linn Akurate LP12. I would have liked the Linn Klimax but at £18k too much for me. Rega Planar 3 is a decent deck

He bought the Rega Planar 3 for his boys bedroom afterwards so I guess it must be decent having looked up how much that Linn deck is!

Interesting feedback, thanks.

Getting grief from the Mrs about going for the upgrade, therefore it needs to be noticeable otherwise I’m going to get some grief! Doesn’t help that aesthetically there’s not a lot of difference in the decks so the Mrs will be ‘it’s the same as the other one!’.

[isleaiw1]

Originally Posted by Colmsport

Interesting feedback, thanks.

Getting grief from the Mrs about going for the upgrade, therefore it needs to be noticeable otherwise I’m going to get some grief! Doesn’t help that aesthetically there’s not a lot of difference in the decks so the Mrs will be ‘it’s the same as the other one!’.

dont tell her then

[Techno 9000]

Originally Posted by Colmsport

I’m considering upgrading my current turntable, a Rega Planar 1, to a Rega Planar 3. The 3 seems to get rave reviews, but what I want to know is if the improvement in quality / sound is really worth the near £700 outlay…

I know I should really go to a store & ask for a demo

Consider whether your amp and speakers are transparent enough to show the improvement of the Rega 3...

I'd be looking at a demo, no two ways about it.

[pmgreenwood]

About ten years ago I used to use a US website that was run by a retired Hifi dealer and gave excellent reviews of globally available equipment. The site has sadly disappeared but a lot can be gained from the name _ The Law of Diminishing Returns

[DaveA]

I have a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon (now debut carbon evo) turntable that has had a few improvements made to it (upgraded platter, sub platter and cartridge) so it would now sit up at the sort of price point that a Planer 3 is now...

If I was buying new, I would probably go for the Planar 3, but when I bought the Pro-Ject it was a good buy...

Is a 3 worth the upgrade from the 1... Almost certainly but what improvement you will hear and whether or not the improvement is to you listening liking is another matter... it will depend upon your other gear and your ears...

What is your system..?

It may be worth looking at interconnects and speaker cables if you are just running basic "freebie" cabling right now... because a £700 turntable ought to be running some cabling better than the freebies you get with gear...

I'll stop... To be honest... You are staring down the HiFi rabbit hole here...

I know what you mean about chasing sound for the outlay, though.. I am currently wondering about my existing phone preamp...

[Colmsport]

Thanks for replies so far…

I’m sort of thinking that my current turntable is the weak point in the system.

I’ve got half decent interconnects - tend to buy these if they’re a ‘What Hi-Fi’ award winner, but assuming they’re good, maybe I’m just a sucker for the marketing…

So, turntable is a Planar 1, running through a Rega phono pre amp (MM mk3), into a Yamaha amp. Speaker cable is the QED silver (from memory) with Q Acoustics 3050 floorstanders.

Yep, I think I’m on that slippery slope!

[DaveA]

Originally Posted by Colmsport

Thanks for replies so far…

I’m sort of thinking that my current turntable is the weak point in the system.

I’ve got half decent interconnects - tend to buy these if they’re a ‘What Hi-Fi’ award winner, but assuming they’re good, maybe I’m just a sucker for the marketing…

So, turntable is a Planar 1, running through a Rega phono pre amp (MM mk3), into a Yamaha amp. Speaker cable is the QED silver (from memory) with Q Acoustics 3050 floorstanders.

Yep, I think I’m on that slippery slope!

I like the current iteration of the Planar 3 and I get the impression it would certainly not let you down at all...

I hardly use my turntable now, to be honest, so can usually put off any ideas of upgrading it by thinking how much that would cost for how little I would use it... It's nice to have, for occasional use, and in my set up it certainly works well and is a pleasant listen (I have the Cambridge Audio solo phono preamp)... I may invest in the Rega MM Mk5 phono preamp (basically the 3 in a new box) to see how it compares to the Cambridge.. but I will stick with the TT as I have it now...

I went through a big upgrade in the system last year and I am pretty happy with how things are for the moment... I have jumped over to mainly playing digital files now... I have my whole CD collection as lossless files plus a subscription to Qobuz, all fed into a streamer/DAC via Roon which I have on an old Mac mini that I use as a music server in my system... I can feed this all around my home into different rooms as required...

I still have my old CD player and DAB/FM tuner (both 15/20 year vintage Arcam products that are still going strong) that I feed into the amp...

I am thinking of hooking my old tape deck up and seeing what tapes I have hidden away... I was also going to do the same for my small DAT collection, but my DAT recorder/player has died a death and I cannot bring myself to pay what the eBay sellers are asking of a replacement... and it would likely cost more to attempt to fix mine than it is worth (if it is even fixable)...

One thing I have started looking at is vintage hifi... too much searching on eBay... I still have almost all of my old hifi products going back to mid 80's, and I quite fancy adding a few older products into the mix...

On the AV side, I still have my old Pioneer Laser Disk player and about 30 films on Laserdisc... A true dinosaur now with 4K TV's...

[Cootie]

I’m a bit of a hi-fi geek tbh - whilst turntables aren’t something I’ve indulged however I have a reasonable appreciation of them built from several friends who have.

Yes, I’d expect an upgrade to the 3 to be a decent step up in sound, however I’ll be a little bit contentious and suggest you’ll likely get more of an improvement for similar money looking at a speaker upgrade, particularly if you’re prepared to consider ex-dem or pre-owned. Better speakers are always a good way to then allow any future source or amp upgrades really shine through.