Rega Planar 3 RS Edition

The iconic Planar 3, but even better

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Turntable £999 whf.cm/Planar3_RS

The Planar 3 has traditionally been the sweet spot of Rega's turntables. Iconic by name and reputation - and the recipient of more What Hi-Fi? Award wins than we can count - this deck has recently impressed us all over again thanks to a new fitted moving-magnet cartridge (Nd3) improving the performance even further than before.

There are ways to upgrade the standard Planar 3's performance-add an outboard power supply and/or upgrade to a step-up cartridge, for instance - but there is quite a gap to the next rung up the ladder, which is the premium Planar 6 deck (£1215 without cartridge).

This is where the Rega Planar 3 RS Edition comes in. The 'RS' stands for 'Rega Special' and is a full production package imbued with a set of upgrades that elevates the standard Planar 3 package, while keeping the overall price competitive.

Low mass, high rigidity

Rega's long-standing turntable design principles can be summed up in four words: low mass, high rigidity. The brand believes that adding mass to the structure of a turntable absorbs energy from the music and increases the transmission of unwanted resonances to distort the sound, so the aim is to avoid adding on structural mass wherever possible. The materials used and design choices throughout Rega's turntable range reflect this principle, and we encounter more sophisticated materials, clever engineering and improved sound quality the higher up the range we go.

As such, the current budget and mid-price models (Planar 1, 2, 3) use an MDF core with a light but rigid phenolic resin skin, while the more premium models (Planar 6, 8, 10) use a foam core with a more advanced and more expensive High-Pressure Laminate (HPL) that is extremely thin but has even greater stiffness, improving the overall performance further.