New Rega Planer 8 (P8) Turntable - Apheta 2 Cartridge Combo - Thoughts

What was the prior setup that was too finicky/tweaky for you (let me hazard a guess with VPI)? Either way, Regas have a reputation for being very clean plug & play platforms, so this seems like a solid choice. Your stereo setup is all such extremely high quality gear, and a new P8 could be a fine match for it - but certainly no lower, or it may risk turning you off vinyl again.

I think the new P8 happens to look really sweet. If you want to step it up from there, look at Clearaudio's Performance DC Wood and Ovation lines (stick with good rigid bearing gimbal arms like the Satisfy, Tracer, and Universal). And bear in mind that both of these brands require excellent isolation for their decks.

elizabeth
Thanks so much and yes I started out with the RP8 and came very close to getting one. They are offering great deals as you noticed.

I was thinking Rega all along because I wanted as simple as I could get setup wise but still wanted it to be good enough. I love my digital set up so I knew my vinyl needed to be decent enough. I have the Bricasti M1SE Dac and had the Bricasti M12 built in ethernet media player hard add installed at the factory into my dac so that was a huge bump in performance over USB.   

My Rega dealer offer me a great price on the New P8. It ended up only being a little more than a few hundred more for P8 so I said heck with it and went for the newer one. I know not all do but I liked the newer look a lot. Simple and cool looking IMO. 

mulveling

You hit it right on the head with the VPI guess.

I had actually tried vinyl a couple times and both times with decent but tough to set up units.

I under appreciated what it takes to get good sound out of these buggers. I know many say it is simple but I tried twice and struck out both times.

(1st time out)
was because I went with an odd and esoteric route. Not smart of me.

** VPI Prime with 
Haniwa Audio HCTR01 Cartridge and
HEQA01 Phono Equalizer 

These are $12,000 phono /cart combo set up. I paid $3500 for demo's so still not cheap but thought what the heck let's start with really good stuff. I just sold a couple amps and was playing with house money and took a shot. Yup - nice try... my fault :(

Needless to say the combo needed special IC's and special wires re-routed through the tonearm which I found out later. Sound was all rolled off and I just never could get it right. Got it better after trying a bunch of other cables but never worked right. Too bad because I am told this combo is great but that said my Bricasti digital blew it away and was so much better but only because I know I never got it right. I lost interest and sold / traded it all away to someone that could set it up and enjoy it because I didn't.

(2nd time out)
** VPI Aries 3D Special Edition (#47 of 100)
Mark Levinson No326s w/phono
Denon DL-S1 Cartridge

Same here. Sounded better but never right. I tried and tried and never got it right. I had an analogue guru. Super nice guy from agon felt bad for me and came over as he was local and he spent hours and re-mounted my cart and he decided the cart was bad and had to send back to dealer. 

Then month later tried another cart and that one had a problems also.

Bam, done and I jettisoned that system also. I really liked this system and kept the ML pre for a while because it was a great linestage also but the Simaudio P-8 is much better so i'm happy there :)

Well I thought, darn I spent a lot and bought a bunch of new records and really wanted a record player so though lets get a Rega table and a Rega cart and did my homework and found a great deal.

Then went looking for a good phonostage.

The Sutherland phonostage takes two IEC power cords so I made sure I got really good stuff for it also. I got (2) Audience AU24se Power Cables and a pair or RCA IC's that are Audioquest Fire. These are the power cables and the IC's the guy who sold me the phonostage was using and he offered me a great deal on the package.

I had such bad experiences in the past with phonostage IC's and the like that I wanted to get something I knew would work plus the seller totally hooked me up. He sold them all to me for less then they are worth because I bought it all together so I can't complain at all.

I could list them all for resale and make $1,000 but I have no interest in that I just want to play some records and my hope is they will sound as good - different then my digital.

I am hoping it sounds good enough to make me want to buy and get more records and enjoy this part of the hobby like so many of you guys do .That is hope. 

Sorry for the long response but wanted to answer your questions :) 

I went through similar problems with my Prime and lost interest in vinyl for a while.  My wife kept questioning me as to why I wasn't playing records when I spent so much on the Prime and accessories.  Took me a year to make a decision to move on to another turntable without the fiddly unipivot arm.  Very happy now.

Wow @fsmithjack ! Wonderful detail. The Aries 3 was actually one VPI table I really liked the look of, and had strongly considered for a time. But I wouldn’t have gotten a VPI arm mounted onto it. I feel that such unipivots are not a good starter arms - and I wouldn’t want anything to do with one even today. The Graham Phantom "unipivot" is an exception to this (it sets up like an absolute dream), but it’s really much more of a refined hybrid than a true unipivot.

I think the P8 is a good idea...I’m excited and hopeful you can come into the "vinyl first" (or at least 50/50) fold with us, from that model. The only issue is that if you stray from Rega cartridges you’ll possibly need to get shims/spacers to roughly adjust for VTA/SRA - but I don’t think that’s an insurmountable issue. I think the plug & play Rega cart bundled with the P8 is a good start, to see where your chips lie on this go-round. Phono stage choice looks solid, too, though I’m definitely a fan of tubed MM stage plus SUT. At this level a good solid-state MM/MC stage will give you best flexibility and low noise floor plus good resistive & capacitative loading adjustments to match your chosen cartridge.

AQ Fire cables - man, those are wonderful sounding cables! I sold off a couple pairs of those, and miss them. Happy new year, and fingers crossed for ya!