Rega tour

Nothing wrong with the modern day build quality, Dave.

Only arm I felt was a bit shoddy was the RB300 which was down to the design. The internal spring is counterproductive and its removal was the most often recommended upgrade.

Also wasnt a fan of that bullshit 3 point fixing system. No VTA adjustment which Is criminal.

Also, the wiring of the arm didn't fit well with me either. Who wants the ground coupled with the Left channel? Not me, that's for sure.

The other big upgrade" was to literally sand off the headshells underside to remove the finish. Only then would the cartridge sit flat lol I mean CMON! it's a basic principle of tonearm design that was ignored.

Shoddy as Sh#t.

My biggest gripe was that the arm design was basic, actually no, it was rudimentary. No Azimuth, no vta on most models, the counterweight rattled, the counterweight is not optionally positioned either. Everyone who knows anything will tell you that the counterweight should be in line with the stylus tip, but rega dont bother with that either.

For me, if you have any chance of fitting and setting up an arm and cartridge properly, you need areas of adjustment, areas Rega dont offer.

It's a fundamental problem.

The arm works and it's cheap enough to buy one in an emergency, other than that, I wouldnt touch one.

Unless I had to pick between an Alphason and a rega.........then I'd pick a rega.

Removing the spring makes NO audible difference. There's no proof anywhere that it does , to my knowledge and hearing. Also VTA is a myth unless the arm gets above 2° out which  would be exceptional.
The only viable statement in the above but one post is the linishing on the head shell which I agree is a good idea. The casting quality is shite.
It's a great arm and when wired properly will make an SME of any model sound tedious .
So ....Id like to thank everyone for your co operation and you can now suck my Dickson. 🤪

Yep.
Made no difference whatsoever except ruined an arm.

Azimuth is only an issue when the cartridge maker fecks it up! Most modern cartridges, even automated manufactured ones like AT95 models are supposed to be, seem to get it better these days. Current arms do look slightly better at the headshell end and paint finish better here.

As for VTA, many cartridges have too much rake angle on the diamond settings, especially it seems Japanese sourced ones as their vinyl is softer or more 'elastic' by all accounts. Having an RB300 slightly down at the rear could actually BENEFIT some cartridges rather than make it worse. The tapered arm pipe makes it look worse than it actually is as well and any Rega arm that superficially 'looks' level is actually set too high.

In any case, looking at leverages and confirmed by cartridge experts I've spoken to, 1/10g tracking force difference can equate to a couple of mm either way up or down at the pivot end and back in the days of the Troika and Karma, I kind of proved it to myself. Also my vibe that the Goldring 1042 prefers the arm a bit tail-down hasn't changed as yet.

I think the best overall third party RB derived arm is probably the Michell one, which is now bordering on mad money imo. drilling the pipe out looks interesting and they do some machining on the underside of the headshell area. Not sure the lower slung counterweight makes any damned difference to a conventionally pivoted arm (very few conventional arms are dynamically balanced in all planes anyway) but it does look smart i admit. Underneath though, a Technoarm is still an RB250 in drag!

Wiring? So much bullshit talked here but maybe the fine Hitachi internal wiring isn't good enough (it's still way thicker than the feet cartridge coil wires), the grounding of the metalwork to one of the signal returns may not be the best idea in metallic armboards with a deck chassis already grounded/earthed and to me, confirming how we listen with our eyes, the Rb300/330 exit cables look Sh#t so they sound Sh#t too (wrong if you make an RCA-RCA cable out of one as I've done). Of course, the posher exit cables on the altogether posher looking RB880 must dramatically improve the perceived sound?

- www.rega.co.uk/rb880.html

In use, the posher exit cables do indeed inspire more confidence before any music is played.

The 2M bkackbis one such cartridge that does benefit from being a bit tail down BUT in my humble opinion, deliberately making an Arm without adjustment ability, is just not gonna make it on to my radar

Not to be deliberately awkward, but I must say that I recently reinstalled my TA and noticed withibg seconds that the sound was off. I hadn't got the vta right.

Exactly.

We've been through that transition and I have to agree. Failing a cart into its perfect alignment can be massively influential

Getting the stylus rake angle correct for lowest possible inter modulation distortion is a compromise between arm height, tracking weight and having the coils in optimum alignment with the generator. It's a 3 way shift where each adjustment affects the other two and you really can only get it right, mathematically and electrically with a distortion analyser and appropriate test record. That American record and software setup kit is 700 bucks.

I run a 12" arm, moving it one or 2mm up and down makes way less difference than .1g on the tracking weight.

But what happens when you swap an AT95 for an obviously bigger Goldring 2200 and the arm Is way off being close to level?

This is exactly what happened to me when using a 250 with the 3point fixing.

Shims are crap, as Dave said.

This is where the arm falls down big time.

Sound wise, the one I had was great but when I moved up the cartridge ladder, its limitations for setup made me change it

Yes, I get ya.

Unfortunately I've downgraded I went from a Fidelity Research FR12 which was specially designed for the LP12 before Ivor got the idea of making his own arms some of which I loved like the very early Ittok but others like the Akito and the mk 1 Ekos which where not so great imo. The FR12 though was a wonderful arm and so beautifully engineered I toyed with the idea of having Angus work his magic on it but it seemed wrong to tamper with it at the time but other things took priority over hifi and I sold all my kit and replaced my deck with an LP12 self build from spare bits and online bargains onto which I stuck an OL modded RB250 which for the money was fantastic as is the AO modded RB300 I have on my Techie.

Of course I can hear the difference between the Regas and the other better arms I've owned but they allow me to enjoy my records at this time. I'd love to try a unipivot but am afraid that AO is out of reach at present but have thought about a Nima would it be a good match with the 1210 I wonder? Another great vfm arm by all accounts and wouldn't cost much once I sold the Rega.