EQUIPMENT REVIEW
Rega RP8 turntable
T
his turntable has
taken way too long.
I visited Rega in 2012 and
saw what was to become (in
fact, make that has yet to become)
the Naiad, the carbon fibre chassis turntable that Rega
designed to mark its 40th anniversary. The Naiad’s not
finished yet, but the process of creating it helped spawn the
chassis of the RP8; in a way, the process is not so much
‘trickle down’ as ‘inverted trickle up’. The RP8 is not made
of carbon fibre, but something with a very similar weight
to stiffness ratio: a foam core with phenolic skins. It is the
ultimate incarnation of Rega’s approach to turntable design,
the most advanced that has yet been put into production,
and it makes for a very different looking turntable.
The plinth is in two parts; all the key elements of the turntable
proper are attached to a skeletal chassis, which can be placed
within a rectangular surround that allows the RP8 the luxury
of a hinged dust cover. It looks a lot more interesting without
the surround, but there’s nothing like a shiny black surface for
showing dust. And then there’s the dust you can’t see on the
mat. You can see the nitrogen expanded, closed cell, polyolefin
foam core of the turntable, but fortunately you don’t have to
remember what it’s called. Some feel that this detracts from its
appearance. It doesn’t look as clean as an RP3, for instance,
but this is a high tech design. First and foremost it has been
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by Jason Kennedy
created to get as
much
information
out of a vinyl groove as
possible. Look at the interior of
many a super car and you will see a
similar thing; this is a very low compromise
design and it is more resolute than most.
The theory behind the lightweight, rigid plinth
involves a simple insight: turntable motors vibrate. Rega uses
a 24 volt, twin phase synchronous motor that has an antivibration circuit and each one is hand tuned to produce as
little noise as possible, but it’s still a motor and its vibration
has to go somewhere. A foam core has an enormous surface
area from which to dissipate that vibration as heat. The platter
on the RP8 is made of glass – three layers of glass in fact.
Rega found a glass company that could bond two different
size rings to the underside of the piece that supports the
record and (this is the tricky bit) make them concentric. So
the weight is on the periphery, which provides inertia with
minimal mass. As ever with Rega, the RP8 has a felt mat, a
device that while by no means high tech seems increasingly
effective with every new model that the company introduces.
The aluminium sub-platter is driven via twin, round
section belts by the aforementioned AC motor, which sits
very close by. It gets its power from a TTPSU with electronic
speed change. As with all but the least expensive Rega,
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EQUIPMENT REVIEW / Rega RP8 tuRntable
there are braces between platter bearing and arm mounting
on either side of the plinth, to provide maximum rigidity
between those two points. The arm itself is called RB808; it
uses the same casting as the RB303 (found on the RP3 and
RP6) but with improved and higher toleranced bearings. It
also has a new low capacitance cable in a fetching shade
of off white, and apparently Rega had to change cable
suppliers to find one that was able to build this particular
topology. It’s terminated in phono plugs that have a twist
clamp action not dissimilar to a certain high-end brand. But
these are not made by that brand. As ever with Rega, there
is no separate earth lead, a convenience that I wish more
arm manufacturers would emulate. Downforce is dynamic
via a spring mechanism and anti-skate/bias achieved
magnetically; both are familiar from previous Rega arms and
they work well and make set-up easy.
This RP8 was supplied as a complete package, with
Rega’s Apheta moving coil already install and aligned at the
factory. You just have to dial in 1.65 grams of downforce once
the counterweight is in place. Rega also supplied an Aria
phono stage, which is an excellent partner for the Apheta.
Unlike the RP6 that I reviewed last year this this turntable
imposes little if any sonic character of its own and much less
than the great majority of turntables I’ve heard. This means you
hear more of what’s on the record – quite an astonishing amount
more in truth. It competes with the best digital can do in terms
of detail, which is high praise in my book. Vinyl usually has the
upper hand in terms of vitality, tonal shading, and timing, but
when it comes to sheer detail a good streamer or well sorted
computer is hard to beat. This has such low colouration and
so little masking or time smear that you can hear seemingly
everything. The denser the music the more obvious it becomes,
I didn’t start out dense, however; I went with Joni Mitchell’s
Mingus [Asylum], ‘God Must Be A Boogie Man’ to be precise.
This piece has Jaco and Joni spanking their
respective planks with some relish
and delivering a degree
of attack that brings the
performance alive. The
RP8 exhibits no apparent
overhang. Notes start and stop
precisely as they should, which
means that there is more space and
air, more light and shade to enjoy. The next
piece was a bit thicker – Stevie Wonder’s ‘He’s
Misstra Know It All’ – a song that is dense with layers of
percussion and, it turns out, vocal parts. It’s not the greatest
of recordings, but it is the greatest of music and to hear what’s
going on throughout the piece is a revelation. The track doesn’t
have quite the emotional impact that it should through the RP8,
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“This turntable is significantly
more sophisticated than anything
Rega has made before, and
more sophisticated than many
competitors, too. What it does
better than the majority is let you
know exactly what is going on in
the music.”
however; I couldn’t pinpoint what was missing as there is so
much coming through but this did lead me to experiment. Before
that happened though, the record had to be allowed to finish.
This is a hard turntable to turn off because you hear stuff that
has been buried for so long. The Rega worked wonders with the
song’s extended fade out, remaining engaging to the very end.
This turntable is significantly more sophisticated than
anything Rega has made before, and more sophisticated than
many competitors, too. What it does better than the majority
is let you know exactly what’s going on in the music. It focuses
your attention away from sound quality per se and toward the
way that the musicians are playing and the precise nature of
the composition. The quality of recording is part of this; Burnt
Friedman and Jaki Leibzeit’s Secret Rhythms [Nonplace]
is a German dub album with simply monstrous bass that
overpowers most turntables; they can’t cope with all the low
frequency energy. Here, it has rhythmic coherence, serious
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EQUIPMENT REVIEW / Rega RP8 tuRntable
extension, and room-filling phase effects that immerse the
listener in a full surround experience from just two speakers.
This was the but one example of the RP8s freedom from
smear, but it’s a quality that appears on everything you play.
The Rega’s nimbleness means that phrasing, sustain, and
harmonies are presented without embellishment or distortion.
Perhaps as a result it can sound dry, so I tried a different
phono stage, a Trilogy 907. This emphasised the RP8’s ability
to extract detail and let Nitin Sawhney’s OneZero direct to disc
recording [Cherry Red] inhabit my listening room in more tactile
fashion than previously encountered. I also tried a Dynavector
DV-20X2L moving coil, which sounded relatively ‘phat’ and
lush compared to the Apheta, but didn’t really do the trick. So
I went quite a bit further and bolted on a Van den Hul Condor
cartridge. This brought out more detail, especially in the high
frequencies and added finesse, but something was still missing.
Eventually, I used a small add-on power conditioner to
the improve the power going to the TTPSU power supply.
The words “that’s got it” were down on the pad within a few
bars; then, the air drums started flailing and we were, to coin a
phrase, cooking with gas. By the time I was half way through
ZZ Top’s ‘I’m Bad I’m Nationwide’ the tears were rolling! This
was not a particularly expensive conditioner (Martin Bastin’s
Wave Mechanic, at £450), but it turned the RP8 into a no-holds
barred giant slayer. I guess this is why the new Rega RP10 has
a rather more sophisticated power supply.
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With the caveat that ultimate performance can only be
achieved with decent AC, the Rega RP8 is the best sounding,
sensibly priced turntable and arm I’ve ever heard. +
technical SPecificationS
Tonearm: Rega RB808
Speeds: electronic 33/45
External TTPSU power supply
24V AC twin phase motor
Skeletal plinth with polyolefin foam core
Triple layer flywheel effect platter
Magnesium and phenolic bracing
Size HxWxD inc plinth: 120 x 450 x 365mm
Weight: 6.3kg
Price: Rega RP8 - £1,598. Rega RP8 package with
Apheta moving coil cartridge – £2,198
Manufacturer: Rega Research
URL: www.rega.co.uk
Tel: +44(0)1702 333071
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