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Rega Planet Mk1 Mods

B

BradNad

pfm Member
I have just bought a Mk1 Planet. It sounds great. I also own a Rega Jupiter and it just lags behind this machine very slightly. It is slighlty flat dynamically (the Jupiter has a more extended bottom end). The mid range is a delight, better than the Planet 2000 IMHO, and on a par with the Jupiter.

I am interested in doing a few mods. Nothing massive.

I know about the upgrage on the caps on the output stage. This seems a cheap and worthwile option. Is it worth doing?

What else is worth doing. I am just trying to make the sound slighlty more dynamic (better bottom end). If i can get it to a level where it competes with the Jupiter, that would be great.

Brad.
 
I also picked up a Mk 1 Planet a couple of weeks ago from ebay, to go with my clamshell Mira. At first I was a little disappointed, as it seemed very shut in, with the treble gone awol. However, two simple steps seemed to have worked wonders. I've removed those squishy feet and sliced off the power cord, substituing it for a Supra Lorad 1.5 that was lying around doing nothing. The difference was not subtle.

I've seen the pages Martin refers to, and the cap change interests me. But I'm stumped when it comes to selecting the right components. I flicked through the Maplins bible but couldn't find any 150fu polystyrene doo-dahs. Any pointers?
 
I futzed around with the planet 2000 a bit and found that the electrical components while looking every bit as cheap as they are, actually sound really great together. I would not use the styrenes. What I would do is find the capacitor values of the DIGITAL part of the dac supply and the clock. Change those for blackgate standard. You could also get some 2222 037 bc component caps for after the regulators. Some might suggest elna silmic caps for couplers but they do too much to the sound for me. You could try the same bc caps for other areas of the ps such as around the sanyo output chip. If you're really crazy, try replacing some of the small value poly caps with evox smr. I would think this would bump up the dynamics and add more ambience, while retaining or even enhancing the rhythmic qualities of the player.
 
I had planned on upgrading the cheap power lead. This I will do.

One thing I have noticed, is that the Planet takes quite a long time to come on song. I may leave it powered up constantly.

Brad.
 
Hold your horses on the power lead. I neglected to mention that I also had a poke under the bonnet and found the ribbon cable that connects the transport to the main board wasn't home firmly. So this simple manoeuvre may have been responsible for the transformation in sound I heard. I'll dig out a kettle lead and do a quick A-B with the Supra, since there's a large part of me that refuses to believe that a crude cut and splice job on the mains lead could have such a telling effect…
 
I had a Mk1 Planet for a while and found it extremely enjoyable.

Indeed I missed it for a good while once sold in favour of a 3.5 - it all changed when a new clock was installed - I've never looked back since. Get a flea in there :)

Nick
 
The PCM1710 is not the best dac chip but reading through Martins mod page for the Planet is certainly worth while, theres a few caps on the PCM1710/1716 type dacs which have a noticeable influence on the sound as I found when I modded an Arcam Alpha7 for a friend some time ago (which uses the same dac).

BTW 150pf polystyrenes,Rubycon ZA/ZL and Oscons should be available from Farnell or RS
 
Sorry to bring up an old post, but am going to upgrade my planet and just wanted to be clear on a few things.
What voltage 150pF polystyrene caps to use? I have found some 630v, are they ok?
What wattage 47ohm resisters? was going to get 0.5w
Thanks for you help.
 
The parts are used in a circuit running on +/-13v rails... so no problem with any available film cap voltage rating.

1/2w resistors for this circuit are also just fine. There's actually zero significant power dissipated in the 47R parts where you are probably going to use them ;)
 
On a slightly different topic. Does anyone know what the part number or manufacturer is for the blue naim tants used in the mods? My unsolicited 2 cents on the rega is change the main reservior capacitor to the best u can fit. See if you can cram a can type with screws in there somehow by glueing it down whatever.
 
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