Speaker Recommendations

The cartridge is the rega apheta 3. The turntable is on a bfly audio stand. The mat is the dereneville magic mat. The setup seems ok. The R10 is far more revealing the details coming through are amazing but it does not have that warm rich sound that a lot of turntables do.

With the PMCs with some pieces of music it sounds amazing particularly with piano pieces and even the coral stuff I was playing over Christmas. But stick the Gypsy Kings or Amy Winehouse on it and it becomes a hard to listen to.

The cartridge is the apheta 3. So itā€™s basically the new one and under a year old.

On another deck Iā€™d try setting the cartridge and arm mounting screws no tighter than necessary but I donā€™t know if itā€™s safe to fiddle with the arm mount screws on the foamy Rega decks, the cartridge screws should be amenable to experiment though. I assume you donā€™t have the special torque wrench Rega used to supply.


Which cartridge loading are you using on the phonostage?

It may simply be the case that the system is showing up less than stellar recordings for what they are. Itā€™s a tricky one.

No I donā€™t have the torque wrench. settings I am using are basically what Rega advised which are as follows. In terms of gain I switch a bit between the high and low gain based on what I am playing.

Load Resistance 100Ī©,
DC Resistance 2 or 3 (either to suit 10Ī© and your preference audibly) and Gain Low or High (to suit your amplification)

I had a similar issue when upgrading the HiCap on my Prefix: DR takes no prisoners.

What HiFi reviewed the combo and had this to say: ā€˜The Planar 10 sounds explicit without going as far as being rude, even to poor recordings.ā€™ which seems to contradict our thoughts here HH.

ā€œYou are serious Loki? REGA P10/ IOS Reference is not enough good source for 52/135 ?
Itā€™s on the level of klimax lp12, I could have compared both some years ago.
( Rp10 at that time).ā€

Frenchrooster, did my reputation not precede my comment?

It would be good to hear Klimax LP12 vs P10.

Hi Loki, I donā€™t know you enough, neither your reputation. So I missed apparently your kidding joke. :smiley:

My personal feeling is the PMCs are not a great match for what I have in front of them. The Rega is very explicit, the Naim amps, I have always loved for their speed an rhythm and clarity, the PMC are again with their studio monitor background not forgiving and one would not exactly call them mellow.

So what I have ended up with is a system that lacks harmonic richness is very analytical and has taken out some of the musicality.

So I guess what I am trying to do by changing the speakers is to get some of that musicality back.

In terms of quality of recordings the Amy Winehouse Abbey Road half speed which I donā€™t thing is a bad recording is a hard listen.

And with the sub removed?
This is pure prejudice on my part, I donā€™t trust the beasts.

Nothing wrong with a well-tuned sub.

JJ: did you get the chance to test the system with a dealer? On paper, at least, you have a revealing set of gear. A good dealer would let you test out various elements (source, speakers) to determine your personal preferences.

Studio monitors donā€™t mean lack of musicality, simply faithfulness to the source. Nowt wrong with that, lad.

Hi, I am currently in Bahrain and there are not any Hifi dealers here. But I got it on a dealers recommend, he initially said go for a Michell deck but then when he realised I was now living overseas he said go for the Rega as itā€™s much easier to set up and sounds good through Naim amps. He also had a trade in IOS reference in stock so I took that as well. Having said that he does not deal in PMC speakers.

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