Bottleneck in a balanced (rega) setup?

[mmrmm]

Hello all, great to join and be part of this community!

Let me introduce, crazy about music but fairly new to the audio scene.

I have the current setup:
- Goldring E3 stylus
- Rega P3 turntable with external TTPSU
- Rega BRIO-R using the internal phono stage
- Rega RS1 speakers
- Mostly QED interconnect cables

I believe to have a very balanced, high quality system, but wanted some opinions on the theoretical bottleneck in my setup. I have an urge to go for a dedicated phono stage, but am reluctant in doing that if then the improvement is limited for the fact I have (example?) an inferior stylus.

Besides the stylus and the phono stage I would not consider an upgrade for the time being.

As for the phono state I would really like to experiment a bit with tubes. Something like Pro-ject Tube Box S2 or Vincent PHO-701 would be my short list for now.

Any thoughts?

 

[AnalogSteph]

I believe to have a very balanced, high quality system, but wanted some opinions on the theoretical bottleneck in my setup.

That's easy: Vinyl records. It's a medium with a number of rather substantial limitations.

 

[sergeauckland]

Although Steph is right, if you are keen to maximise the performance of your vinyl-based system, then there are a couple of things you could improve. Firstly, the E3 cartridge has an elliptical stylus. You'll do better with a line-contact stylus profile, especially in terms of reducing distortion at higher frequencies. It doesn't look like that's an option for the E3, but there are plenty of other cartridges with a line-contact profile.

The other limitation in your system I think is the loudspeakers. Small 'bookshelf' loudspeakers will limit what you can achieve.

As to phono stage, the Brio R stage has a very decent overload capability, can't see any other specs, but expect it to be good enough. Whether you would see an improvement with another phono stage is doubtful, unless you get one with adjustable loading, and spend a lot of time with a test record and meters to get the loading right for the flattest response.

S.

 

[Emulator II]

That's easy: Vinyl records. It's a medium with a number of rather substantial limitations.

You're undoubtedly right. The irony, however, is that people are now sometimes forced to switch to this anachronistic medium if they don't want to hear current productions completely compressed to death. For example with The Cure's current record. All streams, digital downloads and the CD were released with the lowest possible dynamic range.
The only variants that are listenable are the Atmos version on Blue-Ray, for which I don't have a player, the music cassette (no joke!), where the tapedeck is gathering dust in the basement, and the vinyl record. It's a shame!

 

[DSJR]

The following is a mix of personal *subjective* findings so be warned, but I maintain there's more than a little objective reasoning behind them, so tread as carefully as you like while I share how I felt about the gear and cables

The E3 is, I believe, a souped up and externally rebodied VM95E with perhaps more careful QC from what I can see. Goldring now do an E4 stylus which I'd assume approximates the VM95EN as it has a naked decent elliptical stylus. This may be the most cost-effective 'upgrade' here. I'm a fan of the Ortofon 2M Bronze, which sounded great in a current Planar 3 (RB330 tonearm) and Ortofon now do a slimmer version especially for Rega tonearms and turntables... I'd suggest any of these options over the ND3 cartridge, which 'only' has a bonded elliptical tip for similar money to the VM95SH in the UK... To get a serious stylus upgrade, one has to go to the £300 ND5 or £400+ ND7 (Rega's Roy Gandy himself, told us that the cost to a maker of different stylus profiles wasn't very much at all, all else being equal, so make of that what you will!)

I'll say this again, as many dealers haven't an effin' clue these days about vinyl while paying lip service to it - run the Rega with lid removed completely, use the best belt Rega offer for lowest wow figures and correct the speed differences with the external power supply if it's a Neo, which offers this fine adjustment. Site the blasted thing as remote from the speakers as possible and away from corners - a lightweight isolated shelf used to work well, as does their wall bracket, which has shot up in price it seems.

The Brio R amp is 'good enough' by 1980s UK standards and sounds transparent enough, in a 'lively' kind of way. I'd suggest from first hand if sighted experience, that the phono stage and amp in general, will reproduce the subtle upgrades a 'better' turntable will give (I do like the extra emotional 'swing' and subjectively slightly more relaxed sound Planar 6 seems to add to the proceedings, but this is a purely subjective view - I like the thicker platter outer edge too and this is DEFINITELY a sight thing for me )

I don't know the RX1's, but do know and respect the RX3 floor standing model, both offering rather more substantial cabinet builds over their predecessors and a much-needed reduction in added HF 'sparkle' which the RS3 previous generation had in abundance. Midrange on the RS and RX3, was always good I felt, the bass quality depending on room, sources and placement as much as any design consideration. Sadly, the newish Aya speaker is an objective disaster if a neutral frequency response is the ideal and two independent tests show a bumped-up 'boppy' bass at 100Hz or so, a suckout at the mid to top crossover but pleasantly neutral in between these points. Maybe they don't care, or maybe they can't measure accurately, but it's a shame, as I had high hopes for the interesting shape and enclosure material, a proper grille now added over the RX models which only partly covered the drivers from memory (my pal lost two RX3 tweeters to an over-inquisitive granddaughter poking them in!),

AHHHHH - you have RS1's.... I'd suspect a VERY 'toppy' balance with a definite added 'crispness' to them which was definitely tamed in the RX version - they don't fetch much on eht used market currently, so can you see if a set of RX1's or even RX3s can be got for well under five hundred quid?

As said above, the best 'higher fidelity' upgrade you could make (as in getting closest to the sound the mastering engineer wants you to hear), is to add a digital source. Rega's previous Apollo and Planet machines were rather hobbled frankly in a sonic-subjective sense (the DAC-R a dated design even when launched it now appears and hopelessly out of date today), a pal who loved his Apollo R upgrading to the Denon 900 machine for less money. It took him a while to emotionally let go, but he says the Denon is now judged excellent sonically, and he uses this as well as an Airport Express 2 with no qualms when switching between the two (the Apollo R always altered the sound too much, he now feels).

As for the QED cabling, I had ups and downs with their predecessors frankly, but they shouldn't veer too far from neutrality as long as they don't have silver plating in them (the Silver Anniversary award-winning stuff from yesteryear was truly dire, and I honestly don't know why, as every system it was used in suffered a kind of 'samey' flattening of dynamics and less bass power/weight, giving a 'cheap Hi-Fi' kind of 2-D sound - repeatable in various systems, rooms and dealer premises too!). The copper 79 strand, if used in not too long (say 5m maximum) runs, seemed fine here...

Hope this helps. I've tried to keep in touch with Rega products after I left the retail side of things and have tried to be as fair as I can. Using the old hierarchy situation with vinyl based systems, the speakers if you like them in your room, should happily take and reproduce 'upgrades' upstream (digital source, better pickup and deck siting and last of all, a cleaner more powerful amp choice).

 

[Multicore]

Either a digital source or modern speakers would likely produce big differences. Together it would be night and day.

Hence I believe you should not touch that system. It's a set piece system of old-school brit-fi that exactly represents the tradition it belongs to and exemplifies and therefore sounds exactly as it should.

Instead I would suggest get a new system and enjoy them both. Then you can choose between the integral nostalgia and the contemporary high performance according to mood or moon phase.

For example, a pair of JBL 305Pm2, one or two LSR310S subs depending how much you enjoy bass, and a WiiM Ultra. (Those boxes are top performers in the entry level price tier. We can suggest pricier kit if you have budget.)

Any way you meddle with that existing system, except perhaps changing carts, subtracts from its nature. For example, putting either of those preamps in the system would be like Salomon bindings on Atomic skis.

 

[mmrmm]

Thank you all for the contributes so far!

I do have a digital path into the BRIO-R, WiiM and DAC - and get indeed great sound out of that, but as Emulator II mentions it is all about the available recording and remixes. I have a good vinyl collection and most of those recordings are better than the digital ones.

I will investigate those 2 paths, tube photo stage like the Pro-ject Tube Box S2 or the Vincent PHO-701. But I get the feeling I will move to the side and not up, as will enter a shady tube world. For sure different coloring to the music.

On the stylus I will definitely investigate as suggested here. I would consider the Rega Exact or ND5 as a “last move” in the MM world before eventually one day move towards MC. The phono stage will anyway open that path. Anyone has thoughts on the Rega Exact or ND5, specially on the elements my Goldring E3 was mentioned above that could be improved? Between those 2 options, seems from what I read the ND5 would indeed be the choice….?

Again, thanks a lot!