REGA’S P8 TURNTABLE - REVIEW
REGA’S Planar 8 TURNTABLE - REVIEW
Sometime ago I began a transition away from WiFi, Bluetooth, streaming, and what I still consider the best streamer/DAC on the market—Grimm Audio MU2. In addition to its technical and musical prowess the MU2 was, of course, tethered to millions of tracks at the touch of one’s interactive smart-screen.
My transition was further sped along by the combination of the Shanling ONIX SACD/CD transport coupled to the Bricasti Design M1SE DAC. This combination proved to be truly formidable, as it nipped at the heels of the vaunted MU2 and bested it in certain areas, though the combination’s major shortcoming was not being tethered to, literally, millions of music tracks. However, this no longer matters to me. Go figure.
During this time, I also thought long and hard about returning to vinyl, as I remembered my turntables over the decades. They have ranged from a Garrard to a Technics to a Nottingham Spacedeck to my last table, the Transrotor Fat Bob Special. My memories of the Fat Bob Special were of an otherworldly musical and incredibly engaging turntable, though I do not remember its technical acumen.
In my research for a new turntable, I asked Andre Marc, a Senior Editor for AKRMedia (audiokeyreviews.com), for his opinion regarding a new turntable and he immediately suggested the Rega P8 or the P10, should I want to spend the additional monies. He mentioned their ease of setup and operation, as well as their low maintenance, care, and their required ‘feeding’. Being new again to vinyl these were very attractive points.
I thought the P8 might fit the bill, so I emailed The Sound Organization, the US Distributor of Rega, about reviewing the P8, towards its purchase. I also sent an email to Gold Note asking to review their Giglio turntable towards possible purchase, as I had done a bit of research on Gold Note’s turntables. The sheer beauty of their turntables is undeniable. Finally, I sent an email to AXISS Audio, as my last turntable, again, had been the Fat Bob Special. It’s important to compare alternatives, especially when one is new again to a particular way of listening.
Well, long story short, The Sound Organization got back to me immediately, as did Gold Note and we arranged for reviews. However, it took AXISS nearly two weeks to return my email, which, unfortunately, put the kibosh on another Transrotor turntable and a Shelter or a Koetsu cartridge as well. There are reasons for everything.
This brings me to the review of the Rega P8 Turntable, which raises a question. After deep immersion in the digital and streaming arenas, it is possible to fall, once again, for vinyl and the turntables, which make it all possible? [Smile emoji here]
REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the equipment actually sounds and not the process of physically “undressing” it and/or laying out its various accoutrements, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, etc—that, likewise, starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.
The Review System
CEC TL3.3 CD Transport (TL 2N equivalent, up-converted 120V)
Shanling ONIX XST20 SACD/CD Transport
Bricasti Design M1SE DAC w/ethernet
Rega P8 Turntable w/Ania Pro cartridge
Rega P10 Turntable w/Apheta cartridge
Aurorasound Step-Up Transformer
Grimm Audio PW1 Phono Preamplifier
Allnic ASRA 7500 HPA/Integrated
Allnic HPA-300B Headphone Amplifier/Integrated
Atma-Sphere MP-3 Preamplifier
Atma-Sphere S-30 Amplifier
Aurorasound HFSA-01 Integrated/Headphone Amplifier
Lyric Audio Ti 100 MkII Integrated
Audience FrontRow Reserve Cables/Wires
BlackCat Level 2 Setsuna Interconnects
BlackCat Level 3 Setsuna Speaker Cables
BlackCat TRON AES/EBU and SPDIF Digital Cables
Grimm Audio SQM Interconnects (XLR, RCA)
Kubala-Sosna Realization Speaker Cables
RSX Technology BEYOND and MAX Power Cords
Devore Fidelity Orangutan O/96 Speakers
TORUS RM20 Power Conditioner
SEISMION Amplifier Stand (powered)
The Sound
Vinyl is immersive and engaging in a way which CDs and streaming are not, in my subjective opinion. Vinyl embraces and draws one in with the flow of the music, its rhythm, its texture, its voice. As I wrote in an earlier review, I would come to terms with what vinyl was relative to CDs, when a soon-to-be girlfriend, back in the ‘90s, decided to play a record on a turntable, which seemed to me something akin to a Kenner Close ’N Play. I quietly laughed at what I was about to hear. I had been then, like now, deeply ‘embedded’ in the digital world of the late ‘90s . The following scene unfolded, as she lowered the tonearm:
“The music came in waves tactile, sensual, rich that filled the entire room. And when the warmth of Billie Holiday’s voice made contact, as she sang “God Bless the Child”, and as the music and her voice wrapped their arms around me, drew me in, I was stunned-humbled to stone and momentarily catatonic.”
Suffice to say, her dusty, well-worn, vinyl ‘rig’ had put to shame my ‘elevated’, expensive, digital ‘rig’ at the time. Now just after the first quarter of the 21st century it’s Déjà vu all over again. My most recent ‘embedding’ in the digital and streaming worlds, relative to my transition back to vinyl, once again, finds me very much aware of this earlier experience or revelation.
I now play Billie Holiday’s records—All or Nothing At All, Songs for Distingue Lovers, Body and Soul, Lady Sings the Blues—and discover again the sound of her voice, its beauty, its richness, its sensuality via the Rega P8. If you’ve been listening to Billie Holiday via CDs or even high-resolution streaming, you’ve not actually heard her voice or felt it or experienced it. I had listened to Billie Holiday via the Grimm Audio MU2 and the music it brought forth, while truly exceptional and ticking all Hi-Fi boxes, did not embrace, did not wrap its arms around me, was not sensual, nor rich. In this way, CDs and streaming tend to present a ‘wall of music’, which depending on the system can be a ‘frontal assault’, especially so after an extended vinyl binge. They— CDs and streaming—do not embrace, nor do they tend to draw you in to the music, in my subjective opinion.
Now in the 21st century the stakes have been raised on all sides—digital and vinyl—yet the results remain the same. Analog is the sinusoidal waveform, while digital is making ever better attempts to ‘sample’ (upsample, oversample) or approximate this sinusoidal waveform. Analog presents or has presented for me a shoulder-dropping, brow unfurling, relaxing, ‘ahhh’ experience. Digital, on the other-hand, has kept me at bay, listening to its technical proficiencies, its upsampled brilliance, its bells and whistles and sparkles, while keeping me at a distance or, again, making a ‘frontal assault’.
The Rega P8 embodies the former approach to a ’T’, while also providing the technical proficiencies its 20th century and early 21st century brethren could only hope to have achieved. No doubt, this is a direct result of Rega’s asymmetric approach to turntable design, which finds the Rega P8 outperforming turntables at multiples of it pricing and digital setups as well!
The soundstage which the P8 lays out is both wide and deep with a dimensional, tactile center image, which has both weight and gravitas. Further, it lends air and ambiance to performances, and does an exceptional job at resolving high-treble information—cymbals, brushes on drum skins, etc. Though the Grimm Audio MU2, in this respect, goes it one better here. This was a challenge left to its sibling, its big brother, the Reference P10, and it easily rose to the occasion (more on this in a later followup on the P10). Analog is also about texture and palpability and the P8 puts truth to this. Perhaps, in this case, it takes one to know one, as actual contact is made with turntables, wherein digital makes no, actual, physical contact. This is something I’ve long pondered. There seems to be truth to this, in my opinion.
The P8 is both lithe and dynamic and offers deep black backgrounds, from which singers, musicians, and orchestras emerge whole-cloth and vital. The distance it puts between the vast majority of streamers and itself is not, at all, subtle. There are more than a few $20k+ streamers which the P8 would effortlessly embarrass be they in tow with the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC or the AudioNet DNP DAC or even the Bricasti M1SE DAC. It is all about the analog waveform versus the bits and pieces of those CDs and streamers attempting to mirror it—the beginning of the chain. They, in nearly every case, can only put lipstick or perfume on a simulated, sampled, upsampled, oversampled waveform. They cannot turn these simulated waveforms into Billie Holiday singing “God Bless The Child”. Theirs is not the beauty, the richness, the sensuality, the embrace of a P8 (and certainly not a P10!).
The P8 is ‘objective’ meaning it is neither warm nor cold and it certainly isn’t, well neutral, which has, for me, very convoluted and many faceted meanings. I’ve heard ‘neutral’ given to components, which annihilated the ‘spirit of music’ from anything musical which came near them. The P8 beautifully gives back or passes on what it receives to the sole benefit of the music. I have never been to a ‘neutral’ concert or performance. Have you?
It’s bass is potent, fast, tonally/timbrally differentiated, transparent, and quite detailed. This while its midrange brings whole-cloth dimensionality, refinement, texture, and is articulate in a way, which makes more of a singer’s lyrics easily understood (see Rickie Lee Jones). And it deals beautifully with treble+ information—cymbals, brushes on drum skins, etc. The P8 does not presents treble+ information as something frying on a hot skillet or a piece of paper being crushed into a ball. I imagine this lends to the P8’s believability, its naturalness, when it brings the music, which it does effortlessly.
What I’ve presented above due to my current lack of experience, to date, with a range of turntables, I am new to them all over again, is my relative experience with a host of digital components. This, I believe, gives weight to the analog versus digital discussions/arguments. And, it appears, analog, certainly in the form of the P8, has risen above a great many digital products, far above its pricing! However, if my words have led you to understand how good the P8 is, well, just wait, the Rega P10 opens up a chasm of difference, which truly establishes it as Rega’s Reference turntable and at a price no other reference turntable can dare match.
The Design—Look and Feel
The design specifications for the P8 and the P10 flow down from Rega’s ‘concept car’ or its concept turntable, the NAIAD ($40k). The NAIAD is a, no-holds-barred, asymmetric assault on state-of-the-art in turntable design. Asymmetric in that Rega takes a very different approach to the ‘more mass’ wins the day concept. Rega’s approach is, in fact, ‘less mass’ wins the day, which the NAIAD, the P10, and the P8 fully embody.
You’ve seen the ‘more mass’ wins the day reference turntables perched upon steel, acrylic, and/or aluminum thrones weighing in at over 100kgs, with multiple platters spinning in opposite directions to ‘balance the mass’ and ‘the momentum of the mass’. The concept is that more mass eliminates vibration, which is the bane to LP playback. Or does it?
Rega, on the other hand, eliminates and minimizes mass and counts instead on rigidity, across a turntable’s inherent points of movement—rotation, flexing, bending. The NAIAD, via years of research, in this respect, employs innovative materials in addition to eliminating mass, which has apparently accomplished the task of also eliminating vibration. And though I’ve not heard the NAIAD, I’ve heard its ‘siblings’—P8, P10—and via trickle-down effects, they are, truly, impressive. They represent, I believe, a qualitative improvement in high-fidelity vinyl playback. What both the P8 and the P10 have shown me is their ability to easily outperform turntables and even digital rigs, which I’ve recently heard and owned, at, literally, multiples of their price!
The P8’s plinth, fashioned of Tancast 8 foam core, is skeletal in design or, perhaps, it seems more of a frame (think I-beam), which efficiently dissuades vibration via its foam core, its double brace technology, and by providing less overall mass to, well, vibrate. Could this be any more logical? No. The P8 sports Rega’s RB880 tonearm and comes without or with one of the following cartridges: Nd7 (MM), Nd9 (MM) Ania Pro (MC), Apheta 3 (MC). The P8 is a simple, straightforward affair, which is very easy to operate and maintain, and which, after required burn-in, sounds incredible. However, it will absolutely need burn-in!
Conclusion
The Rega P8 is a tour de force and especially at its price point, as it has bested digital rigs and turntable rigs far in excess of its pricing and it was truly shocking. The Rega P8 was less expensive than the tonearms and even the cartridges of these turntables and yet it put them to shame! This speaks volumes to the P8’s price to performance ratio.
Yes, the Rega P8, based upon it less-is-more philosophy, represents something new, certainly to me, which challenges the reigning orthodoxy. It also proves there is another, more effective way, a road less traveled, of reducing vibration and thus conveying the music in all of its respects. And in this, the results are smashing or as we used to say, “Outta sight!”
The Rega P8 easily wins our DIAMOND Award for its asymmetric, anti-orthodox innovation, its wonderful musical insight, and its technical acumen. Bravo!
The Company
Rega
Rega Planar 8 Turntable w/No Cartridge: $3,395
Rega Planar 8 Turntable w/Ania Pro Cartridge: $4,475
The Distributor
The Sound Organization
1009 Oakmead Drive
Arlington, TX 76011, US
soundorg.com
