The New Rega Planar 9

Long anticipated, Rega Research's newly revised Planar 9 turntable made its debut this past month at the January 2002 CES in Las Vegas. The new Planar 9 incorporates a host of improvements, including a significantly revised tonearm called the RB-1000, new isolation feet, a new wood surround, a new plitnh design, and a fully revised motor power supply. About the only thing that remains from the old Planar 9 is the ceramic platter, sub-platter, motor, and bearing. The revised motor drive power supply for the Planar 9 is now in the new larger chassis (the last of the Rega products to migrate from the old clamshell style chassis). With greater space to work with inside, improvements have made to the motor drives power supply with a new circuit layout which does include the ability to tweak the 33rpm and 45rpm speed settings (via controls accessible behind the units front faceplate - No, they are not meant to be easily accessible). With all these new improvements, a price increase was to be expected. According to US Rega distributor Steve Lauerman, the Planar 9 will retail for about $3,300 here in the US.

Now, lets take a close up look at the new RB-1000 tonearm. As the picture above shows, the whole bottom part of the arm (bearing housing, anti skate mechanism, and arm lift housing) is now made from machines stainless steel. A brief chat with Rega Engineer Phil Freeman brought forth some other interesting design details. For example, the anti-skate mechanism is not the traditional magnet design used on all the other Rega arms. If I understood Phil correctly, adjusting the anti-skate mechanism applies some type of hydraulic pressure to generate the anti-skating force! Got me how this applies a anti-skating force to the arm (I'm a EE, not an ME), but it sure sounds ingenious. Notice how highly polished the arm tube is. With no finish of any kind on the arm tube at the high amount of polishing done to it, the arms mass is reduced by 3 grams which allows Rega to use the smaller counterweight shown on the arm.

All these changes to the arm make for a well damped arrangement. In mid play, Phil stopped the table (with stylus in groove as shown above), cranked up the volume on the preamp and rapped on the Planar 9s plinth. The stylus stayed firmly in place and only a dull thud emanated from the speakers.

It also looks like Rega has paid some attention to external isolation as well as I don't recall seeing these feet on the previous version of the Planar 9.

The above picture gives good view of the new wood surround. Basically, it is the same real wood finger jointed design as before, but the new version is wider and more nicely sculpted. Just as before, a variety of wood finishes will be available on the Planar 9.