The more I get involved in the Rega world, the more confused I become. Many designs seem to be a contradiction in goals. Today I found myself fixing the stock interconnects out of my RB300 tonearm (mounted on ARMod), and decided enough is enough.
The interconnects would make noise when you moved them, occasionally have hum and constantly had problems with the interconnects. The real problem is the wire. I dissected the cable and the shield is a simple wire wrap around the coated center conductor. Construction was like the Recoton plugs you use to buy for 99 cents at the local audio salon.
Not that these cables are bad, but they should at least have adequite shielding. So I cut off all but about 3 inches, made a nice copper RCA jack mounting plate and soldered the wires to that assembly.
This allows me to use the cable of my choice, which was the Bluejeans LC-1 at 1.5 meter. Gone are the crackly sounds, the hum the other imbellishments. Here is the ultra nice and quite background. I can turn the preamp all the way up an hear nothing but the residual of the system. No hum.
No, I'm not suggesting that everyone go out and chop off their interconnect cords. But it really makes me think that Rega makes some bad design choices in their turntables, the interconnect is one of them. If I were to make and sell tables, they would only have RCA jacks for termination.
The arm is a work of art. Anyway, I'm going to listen to a bunch of vinyl today as it is hotter then hell out again and I have all my chores done.
Wayner aa
