Rega Planar 3/Nd3

A change of cartridge boosts the Rega Planar 3's performance at no extra cost

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Rega’s Planar 3 turntable was introduced in 1976, the same year What Hi-Fi? was born. Since then, it has remained one of our go-to recommendations for sensibly priced record players. While the deck hasn’t changed much in appearance since then, just about every part of it has been refined at some point. The most significant milestones have been the addition of the legendary RB300 arm in 1983, the change to the still-current low-noise 24v motor in 2007 and the extensive redesign in 2016.

In that 2016 redesign, the light but rigid plinth design continued, but the area between the main bearing and arm was further reinforced by a pair of phenolic resin braces. These added even more stiffness between those critical points without the penalty of significant extra mass. You should know that Rega maintains that structural mass absorbs energy from the music and increases the transmission of unwanted resonances, and so should be minimised where possible. The current RB330 tonearm was introduced at this time and the quality of Planar 3’s finish was improved markedly too.

If it ain’t broke…

What of the 2024 Planar 3 in front of us? As far as the deck is concerned there is nothing new to report, but that isn’t a great issue when its performance remains class-leading. Its build is impressive, as is the quality of the engineering, especially of the fitted RB330 tonearm. The Planar 3 is now available in four finish options: black, white or red, all in gloss, and the recently introduced light-oak finish.

We still have to put up with a manual speed-change process that involves removing the 12mm thick glass platter and physically shifting the drive belt from one motor pulley step to the next, though. If you want an electronic speed change the optional outboard Neo PSU Mk2 power supply does the job for £260.

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