Rega Planar 10 Turntable Review

My love for Rega turntables goes back a long way. In 1980, when I was looking to upgrade my Thorens TD160 turntable, a good friend and audio buddy provided me with a recommendation: “You should check out this new company, Rega. I hear it is doing really good things.” 

Shortly thereafter, I purchased the original Rega Planar 3, and, as low-tracking-force cartridges were then the rage, put the new SME Series III tonearm on it. If memory serves, I used a Frank Van Alstine-modified Sonus Gold cartridge. I took the rig over to another audio buddy, who was then using the Kenwood KD-500 granite turntable and Infinity Black Widow tonearm, which, at the time, comprised one of the “hot” turntable setups recommended by TAS’ founder, Harry Pearson. 

Much to our mutual surprise, the Rega Planar 3 blew the Kenwood into the weeds. We did multiple comparisons that evening, back and forth, with our best reference LPs played on both decks. Every single time, the Rega sounded better, hands down. My friend went out the next week and bought a Linn Sondek LP12, which he owns to this day. And I kept my Planar 3 for the next 30 years, using it exclusively as my music source during the years when my involvement with high-end audio waxed and waned. In 1987, I put a Grace Ruby on the SME, and then in 2009, Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith re-tipped the Grace with one of his ruby-cantilevered styli, which took the cartridge to another level. Eventually, I passed my Planar 3 on to my brother-in-law as a Christmas gift when his ’table died.

When I got seriously back into high-end audio in 2010, and was looking for a newer turntable, my Linn-owning friend offered me his like-new SME V tonearm for a great price (the SME wasn’t a good match for his Linn), and I bought a Michell Gyro SE turntable for it. About a year later, I snagged a very lightly used Koetsu Urushi Vermilion moving-coil cartridge. This setup became my reference (the Vermilion has since been re-tipped and fully re-built by Koetsu), but I never forgot how much I enjoyed Rega turntables, and in 2012, bought a lightly used Rega P5 with external power supply from a friend. I put a Sumiko Pearwood Celebration II cartridge on it, and was surprised at how good it sounded, performing way above its price point. The P5 had excellent detail and resolution, and had a punchy, energetic quality with real drive. It really “kicked out the jams,” great for rock, 80s New Wave, and blues. For 20% of the cost, I estimate the P5 performed at 80% of the level of my reference setup. That’s an excellent value proposition and, in my opinion, the P5 is still a great ’table, even today. 

Cut to the present. The better part of a decade has passed, and time and turntable development have not stood still. While Rega still advocates using light, stiff, low-mass plinths coupled to tonearms of superior engineering, since the legendary P9 it has been extending the classic Rega ethos with new designs that utilize innovative materials and manufacturing technologies. 

Extending Rega Design Principles

Rega turntables have always pursued the goal of extracting as much information from the record groove as possible, while concomitantly minimizing the impact of vibration and resonances from the external environment. From the black, laminated particle-board plinth of my Rega Planar 3 to its most recent top-of-the-line models, Rega has utilized designs with the lightest, stiffest plinths possible. With the advent of the top-of-the-line RP10 in 2013, and now the Planar 10, Rega has completely done away with the classic rectangular plinth, switching to a minimalist, “skeletonized” base that combines the lowest possible mass with as much stiffness as practicable. The RP10 utilized a skeletal plinth composed of two layers of HPL (high-pressure laminate) with a layer of polyolefin foam in between. The Planar 10 takes this design further, using Tancast 8 instead of polyolefin foam, resulting in a plinth that is 30% lighter than the RP10’s, but with increased rigidity. 

The platter is a key reason why the Planar 10 can extract so much information from the record grooves. It is made of a super-hard ceramic material, aluminum oxide, first used on the P9. In the case of the Planar 10, the edge of the platter is thicker than the center portion to provide additional rotational mass and, thus, a flywheel effect that increases speed stability. The traditional Rega 100% wool mat is still used, but the Planar 10 has an improved thin, white wool one. The platter is milled from ceramic oxide blanks with diamond tooling to provide maximal dimensional precision and flatness. The platter sits on a new sub-platter that features double belts and rests on small, machined nibs at the sub-platter’s circumference to provide high contact pressure and therefore maximize the transfer of energy from the motor and belt.

The Planar 10 also uses two skeletonized braces (first found in the Rega P9) that tie the main bearing and tonearm subassemblies into a single, integrated, stressed member that provides additional stiffness with a very minimal increase in overall mass. The top brace is ceramic; the bottom brace is phenolic; and these different materials have different resonant frequencies. Together, they further improve the ability of the system to extract information from the record groove. 

New RB3000 Tonearm

Rega has been long-renowned for its tonearms; indeed, for years many other turntable manufacturers have used Rega tonearms. The company has continually refined its tonearm-manufacturing process, developing (among other things) a sophisticated means to lap both ends of the tonearm bearing surfaces simultaneously, which results in bearing tolerances of one micron. Crazy! The new, top-line RB3000 is the first Rega ’arm to benefit from these improvements. The tonearm was specifically designed to have the lowest possible number of joints, while concomitantly maximizing stiffness in key locations. As with the previous-gen RB2000, the ’arm is not painted, but hand-polished to a beautiful finish to keep mass as low as possible. 

24V Low-Noise Motor Assembly

The Planar 10 uses Rega’s latest-generation, 24V, synchronous, low-vibration motor technology. This new motor is mounted using a maximal level of coupling, while simultaneously producing less vibration than previous-generation models. The new motor-mounting approach is the same used on Rega’s statement turntable, the Naiad. The rationale for this is to remove all stress from the motor body, while holding the drive pulley perfectly still, which results in greater speed stability and accuracy. Each motor is hand tuned to match its own PL10 PSU power supply, before being fitted to the turntable. 

EBLT  Reference Drive Belt

The quality of the drive belt has a significant impact on sound quality. Rega has put forty years of R&D into developing a bespoke rubber compound for its belts. The manufacturing of this new rubber belt involves a special curing protocol, which results in a molded belt that has a modulus of elasticity that is extremely consistent throughout its length. The new belts are molded using a Rega-designed, state-of-the-art, super-accurate mold tool, to produce belts that are perfectly round and dimensionally accurate. These new belts provide perfect speed stability and are key contributors to the Planar 10’s exemplary overall sound quality. 

PL10 PSU  Custom-Matched Advanced Power Supply

The PL10 external power supply provides exceptional speed stability, and convenient electronic speed changes at the press of a button. It also has advanced anti-vibration control and user-adjustable electronic fine-speed adjustment to ensure maximal accuracy for the life of the motor. Housed in Rega’s latest custom-designed case, the PL10 PSU runs the low-noise motor as quietly and as accurately as possible. The speed and control of the motor is achieved by using a new digital-signal-processing generator controlled by a high-stability crystal oscillator. This device references the highly accurate square wave from the crystal oscillator to turn the platter at the selected speed. The DSP core will also generate a near-perfect sinusoidal waveform to power the motor. Factory-set vibration removal and fine-speed adjustments are then made to the power supply to tune each motor for optimal performance.

Setup

Setting up the Planar 10 couldn’t be simpler. All the components of the turntable are packed safely in individual compartments within the inner shipping box. Remove the plinth and place the platter on the sub-platter. Connect to the Rega power supply via the XLR cable, and to the phonostage with the locking RCA tonearm cables. Remove the packing tape from the tonearm, install the counterweight on the ’arm to where it balances, dial in the tracking force and anti-skate, and you’re done. The Planar 10 that Rega sent for review came with the Rega Apheta 3 moving-coil cartridge pre-installed. The cartridge uses Rega’s three-point mounting system, so there is nothing to adjust or fiddle with in cartridge setup. Setup literally takes all of ten minutes, tops. 

Listening Impressions

An important note for readers is that all my listening impressions are based on using the pre-installed Rega Apheta 3 cartridge supplied with the Planar 10; I did not mount and listen to any other cartridges. 

Rega has long been known for making turntables that punch way above their price point in audio quality. One of the things that struck me upon first listen was how quiet the Planar 10 was. By nature of their design, turntables are affected by a variety of noises: rumble from bearings, wow and flutter from belts and motors, extraneous vibrations, acoustic feedback, just to name a few. With respect to reducing the impact of noise, the effects of the advanced engineering and materials Rega put into its new bearing, tonearm, platter, and plinth were apparent from first listen. The Planar 10 was really quiet. In fact, this turntable set new standards for me for its exceptionally low noise floor and, as a result, the quietness of its musical presentation. The music just emerged from a pitch-black background, fully defined spatially within a deep, wide, and tall soundstage, allowing me to hear into the music and focus on all sorts of lovely details and niceties. 

When it was paired with the Rega Apheta cartridge, the other quality that was immediately apparent was the exceeding neutrality of the Planar 10. I know that, for some folks, the term “neutral” is code for “cool, analytical, or spare,” but that is not at all what I’m referring to. The most accurate way I can describe the Planar 10’s neutrality is to use a metaphor from digital photography, where neutral gray is a perfect RGB value of 128/128/128. When your photo (or musical presentation) is perfectly neutral, all the colors shine true without contamination from color casts. There is no, and I mean no, coloration from this turntable and cartridge. 

Rega’s design principles are low mass and stiffness for minimizing vibration and maximizing information extracted from the record groove, and the new Planar 10 sets a new milestone in these regards. The Planar 10 and Apheta 3 cartridge extract so much information from the record grooves that, upon first listen, I was, as the Brits say, “gobsmacked.” Tonal accuracy and resolution were exemplary on musical or vocal cues, both large and small. On Norah Jones: Live at Austin City Limits [New West NW5097], Jones’ voice was so lifelike it was as if she were right in the room with me. With the Planar 10, her piano (one of the hardest instruments to mic and record properly) sounded big, powerful, and resonant. 

The Rega really strutted its stuff on complex orchestral music, such as the seminal recording of Albeniz’s Suite Espagnola with Raphael Frühbeck and the New Philharmonia Orchestra [Decca SXL 6355]. The Albeniz suite was a veritable showpiece for the Planar 10’s virtues. The full-scale “thwacks” by horns, timpani, and cymbals on “Asturias” were so clean and fast that they startled me upon first listen. As the string sections swelled to a peak, I could still resolve the texture of the mallets on the skins of the timpani and the individual bright, metallic tones of the triangle clearly overlaid on top. As the orchestra ramped up to full speed, the acceleration from piano to fortissimo was very, very quick and dynamic, with virtually no distortion or breakup. 

“Blue Rondo a lá Turk” on my original Columbia pressing [CS 8192] of Dave Brubeck’s Time Out was an absolute revelation. On the Planar 10, the stereo imaging from this LP was better than I’d ever heard it, even better than on first-class DSD recordings, with the soundstage extending way past the outside edges of my Harbeths’ front baffles. Moreover, I’d never before heard drummer Joe Morello’s brushwork on the ride cymbals so finely rendered, with a metallic, silvery texture that was sensational. Even though Brubeck’s piano is mic’d to the right and “Rondo,” for the most part, is performed in an unorthodox time signature, the tone of Brubeck’s instrument was dense and powerful, as he did that solo in counterpoint to a bass line that just swings. On “Take 5,” Morello’s famous solo, where he repeats the same two-bar phrase three times, was a standout, and his thwacks on the toms and snare were so fast and clean they came across like cracks of lightning—no blur, no slur, and virtually no overhang. 

During John Williams’ guitar solo in the Rondo: Allegreto of Paganini’s Trio in D major for Cello, Violin, and Guitar [Haydn Guitar Quartet & Paganini Guitar Trio, Columbia MS 71630], the individual notes and their resonances within the guitar’s sound box were all there, while violinist Alan Loveday played a series of pizzicato notes that had so much detail and resolution I could tell that the strings were being plucked close to the bridge, the notes coming off round and “rosiny” with finely delineated texture. 

Continuing with the classical guitar theme, one of the records I broke out to play was The Royal Family of the Spanish Guitar with Los Romeros (all of ’em) on a wonderful monaural Mercury Living Presence [Mercury SR90295]. While there was no true “stereo” image, the Planar 10 and Apheta 3 cleanly resolved each Romero. The occasional pop and click aside, what was remarkable about this recording was the pitch-perfect tone of each guitar, the gorgeous harmonics, and the subtleties of the fretwork, which demonstrated just how complex, dynamic, yet nuanced a single type of instrument can be in the hands of virtuosos. And again, there was that amazing timbral accuracy, which is such a strength of the Planar 10. While mono recordings can’t create “width” per se, they can certainly create a sense of dimensionality, and that attribute was present in spades on this recording. “Living Presence” is right. Wow! This record was so enjoyable on the Planar 10, I played it back-to-back several times. 

Of course, classical and jazz weren’t all I listened to. It was fun pulling out some of my favorite rock/pop LPs from the 80s. In particular, “In the City,” from Eurythmics’ first album, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This [RCA AFL1-4681], was a standout. While the song is mixed a touch hot, true to the mastering sensibilities of the day, it’s still one of my favorites on the album, and it was played back just as the engineers intended it to sound: all dark, moody, and film noir, with Annie Lennox’ gorgeous, husky, sexy voice floating ephemerally above the instrumental track and dubbed-in subway sounds. The instrumental complexity and musical density were beautifully articulated on “Steppin’ Out” from Joe Jackson’s Night and Day [A&M SP-4096], which was played back just as it needed to be: kicky and energetic, with drums providing the backbeat, beautifully textured bass and Rhodes piano the rhythmic drive, and clear, clean xylophone and orchestral bells on top as dessert. It’s hard not to get up and dance to this one. 

Summing Up

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I love this turntable. It’s a snap to set up and is so well made that it should provide reliable performance for decades. With its use of cutting-edge materials, straightforward design principles, and unrelenting focus on minimizing the impact of vibration to extract maximal information out of record grooves, the Rega Planar 10 is easily one of the best turntables I have ever heard, regardless of price. Combined with the Apheta 3 moving-coil cartridge, the Planar 10 extracts incredible amounts of detail, while also providing spacious, stable, and well-defined imaging. Frequency response is extended with exceptional tonal neutrality. The presentation is characterized by lifelike low-end power, and overall definition, speed, transparency, and articulation. The bottom line? Yes, you can spend more money on a turntable, but, honestly, I can’t think of why you’d need to. I can’t imagine having a more satisfying and engaging experience than the one that the Planar 10 offers from LPs. It’s an outstandingly well-thought-out, well-engineered, and well-made product, and will last a lifetime making beautiful music. What more could one ask for? Unequivocally, my highest possible recommendation. 

Specs & Pricing

Output to motor: 24V AC bi-phase, ~350 mA
Speed control step size: 0.01 rpm
Dimensions: (dustcover fitted): 16.5″ x 4.9″ x 12.4″
Weight: 10.36 lbs.
P10 PSU dimensions:  8.6″ x 3.1″ x 12.6″
Weight: 6.6 lbs.
Price: Planar 10: $5695; Planar 10 with Apheta 3: $6695; Planar 10 with Aphelion 2: $9695

The Sound Organisation (North American Distributor)
1009 Oakmead Drive
Arlington, Texas 76011
(972) 234-0182
soundorg.com

Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Lampizator Baltic 3 DAC, SOtM SMS-200 UltraNeo network bridge, Mac Mini Roon Core Server, Sonore OpticalModule fiber media convertor, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN Ethernet switch, Uptone Audio LPS-1.2 power supplies
Analog source: Rega Planar 10, Rega Apheta 3 moving coil cartridge, Bob’s Devices Cinemag step-up transformer, Uni-Pro protractor
Phonostage: E.A.R. 324
Preamplifier: First Sound Presence Deluxe 4.0 SE MkIII active preamp with Paramount Special Edition Upgrade
Power amplifier: Conrad-Johnson LP70S
Loudspeakers: Harbeth 40^th Anniversary 30.2, Dynaudio Contour S3.4 with Esotar 2 tweeters, REL R-305 subwoofer
Cables: Shunyata Research Sigma XC and NR V2 (Everest & power amp), Alpha NR V2 (preamp and phonostage), Shunyata Omega QR-s (DAC), V14D Digital (digital components), Shunyata Sigma and Alpha V2 interconnects, Sigma Ethernet & Alpha USB digital cables, Alpha V2 VTX-Ag speaker cables
A/C Power: Shunyata Research Everest 8000 and SR-Z1 wall outlet