rega 25 upgrade?

big ears

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May 1, 2015
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hi - as a new user I would welcome some advice. I have a rega planar 25 (the special anniversary edition) & I am thinking about having some substantial upgrades to it rather than buy one of the new rega's - like an rp8 (or possibly 10) - which are now pretty expensive. I love the sound of my deck (I have loads of vinyl) & understand that the motor could be replaced with a 24 volts one, along with the new power supply; obviously I cannot audition such mods beforehand but I gather that the improvements would be significant. I really favour keeping the 25 & building on it's merits if possible, especially as I gather that it will not be worth a great deal secondhand

any thoughts, please? along with any other suggestions for the 25 - such as arm mods?

thanks in advance
 

kikiso

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Jun 3, 2011
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Hi big ears and welcome. I have the same deck and I have made the following mods....

1. Added a Head Orbit power supply/speed regulator. The motor in the 25 is already pretty well tuned and although the 24v upgrade is probalby good for other decks, I don't think it's an effective upgrade on the 25. If you decide you want to sell the Head Orbit later, no actual deck modifications are needed.

2. Replaced the plastic sub platter with the Groovetracer and added the white belt from Rega. The Groovetracer is a much better machined sub platter and it comes with a very high grde bearing. Again, you could always remove an re-sell providing you keep your orinal parts.

3. The cheapest upgrade was a VTA Adjuster to raise the arm which has improved the sound from my Nagaoka MP200 cart. This did require some minor wood working on the deck to enlarge the aperture that the tonearm sits in.

Changes 1 and 2 cost in the region of £750 and the deck sounds great, although it sounded good to begin with. I suppose you could invest in a better arm on the basis that it could always be transplanted to a better deck at a later stage, I have no idea if it would sound better than what you have already as it's a pretty good arm in my view. A secondhand RP6 or RP7 could be more cost effective upgrades, I just enjoyed the tinkering and I think the only way to improve what I have now is to invest in a much more expensive cart and add a phone stage, today I'm using the phone stage of my Elicit-R which I think is the next "audio" bottleneck.
 

big ears

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thanks - very interesting. I have added the new motor & ttpsu, also alloy sub platter & new bearing - each stage incrementally - & improvements all round to stability & sound stage, so worth it

regards
 
big ears said:
thanks - very interesting. I have added the new motor & ttpsu, also alloy sub platter & new bearing - each stage incrementally - & improvements all round to stability & sound stage, so worth it

regards

I was going to reply and advise against it but then I realised how old this thread is and you have already done it .. Ho hum.

Whatever the additional / future upgrades suggested by stevebrock are good suggestions.
 

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