I have recently been restoring a lovely old Rega Planar 2 for a customer of mine. It reminded me how great the older Regas are, and why you are better off restoring an old Rega than buying a new one.
The old Planars, like the one on my workbench, are much better made than the new ones. The original 2 has a lovely solid glass platter as opposed to horrible MDF on the new decks. The whole deck was designed to be strippable and serviceable. The spindle bearing is lovely with a really close tolerance am responds very well to modern synthetic oil. The motor also responds well to a couple of drops of oil.
Perhaps the biggest weakness is the arm in the case of the older Regas. The good news though is that the ‘S’ shaped arm can be removed and replaced with a newer and far better one-piece Rega alternative, like an RB700, or a newer three-point mounting style RB251. Both bring a big improvement to the mechanical coupling of cartridge to deck, and resultant sound quality.
I can of course provide these and other services to you and your much-loved Rega, taking it way beyond the new and not very good basic new Rega models.
