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REGA RB300 info request

N

ntom

pfm Member
Hi all

I have this REGA arm.......!

Am gettimg to the end of a long drawn out building project. Result: I now have a listening room...and time to move in the kit.

Came acoss this that I picked up some time during the build and haven't used yet....!

Have a couple of questions about it -perhaps someone that knows a bit more about these can answer.

-It's a REGA RB300 but it has a black counterweight and stub. Is this Rega original? Is this an early RB300 perhaps...?

-It's had an arm rewire, unlikely I know but can anyone indentify what wire has been utilised just from the photos..... arm cable has some nice SME plugs on.

Thanks.

http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy105/ntomntom/REGA%20RB300/IMG_4902-3000.jpg

http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy105/ntomntom/REGA%20RB300/IMG_4900-3000.jpg

http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy105/ntomntom/REGA%20RB300/IMG_4901-3000.jpg
 
Doesn't look stock - either the stub/c/w or the external lead.

The early RB300 had the small Tungsten c/w fitted as standard. Later ones moved to a steel c/w with the Tungsten as an extra cost option. Some crop up with replacement c/ws that are the RB303 black steel variety (these can be identified by a slightly chamfered edge and a groove running through the middle of the outer circumference.
 
That's an older Rega arm, the new ones don't have a thread to fix it now
but a trianglar 3 point shims.

The counterweigth is either not original, the original being also black but a bit rounder shaped around te corners
or your arm is REALLY old and this is a stone age version, I am not sure here.

The SME plugs and soldering doesn't give me as much confidence as you,
today's standard also for SME I guess is rather CNC machine small connectors
with a small hole to put the cable and fill up with solder then.
Also the counter side looks more like a massive plug and not just a pressed sheet of metal.

Common wisdom with those arms is, they are really good potential,
need a re-wire and bearing check (Audio Origami)
And if done you can put in a substancial MC cart w/o issues,
the deck mostly becoming the limit, not the arm.
 
Someone on vinyl-engine forum might be able to identify the plugs and cartridge tags (and the stub) as belonging to a particular re-wire service or kit, but it could be a self-made rewire.
 
torstoi said:
The counterweigth is either not original, the original being also black but a bit rounder shaped around te corners
or your arm is REALLY old and this is a stone age version, I am not sure here.
Click to expand...
Really old is dense tungsten counterweight, dull shiny, and shiny stub.

Mine dates from about 1984, I think one of the first sold without an attached turntable. I've had to rewire it and the plastic moulding for the arm rest got broken, Jeff at Audiomods was kind enough to supply a spare, so I rebuilt that part too.

Paul
 
My experience of using a few aftermarket counterweights on an RB250 is that a rigid coupling outperformed the stock rubber coupled items from Rega (I have a tungsten stub/weight for the 250), but that was only using MC cartridges.

So I wouldn't take the fact it isn't stock as a negative to be honest - same for rewiring job.

Of course, if you now think it is junk I'll happily give you £50 for it :). I also have a spare 250 plastic end stub and black steel counterweight here if you'd like to try a stock Rega item

Richard
 
Interesting mods..

Could be a very early OL counterweight mod, I see that SME phono plugs have been used too. Appears to have been neatly executed.
 
I had an early OL structural mod done to an RB300 back in the mid to late '90s ('97 or '98?). I think the OL ad for the mod had just started to appear in Hifi World and as I was just down the road at the time I got in touch with Mark. The arm stub looked very similar to the stock one but with a tensile bolt fixing in the end. The counterweight was the standard Rega one but reamed out and with a thread drilled for a single fixing bolt. Unfortunately I found that this reduced the mass of the counterweight enough that it couldn't balance out many metal bodied MC carts, so Mark also supplied a suitably modified RB250 counterweight for me to use. That worked better, but didn't look so good, particularly when the paint began to bubble up and flake off...

I also had it internally and externally rewired. It took a bit of back and forth to get it right, but once there, it sounded very good indeed. Only other issue was that the external wire was thin and stiff with a brown teflon coating. It was as stiff as coat hanger wire and so very hard to dress on suspended deck.
 
I owned an RB300 of this age and the wiring (throughout) is definately non standard, nor is the counterweight or the stub it is attached to (both of these were tungsten).
 
Are you sure it's an RB300. It looks like an RB250 to me although the pictures don't make it that easy to tell.

Does it have a tracking force dial on it?
 
Yep, I see what you mean, it's an RB300 Have just googled RB250 side view and it's different.

I agree that the end stub and c/w are not original RB300 though. Could the rewire be Cardas cabling?
 
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