Please do me a favor and take the weight off your Rega.
Rega turntables are designed to be as light as possible and to dissipate vibrations. That’s why many P3 owners replace the platter with a lighter acrylic one and omit the slipmatt. Your weight causes the absolute opposite. The Rega bearings are also getting destroyed by weights, as they are mainly designed for low friction.
The motor often doesn’t like that much weight and runs too slowly. The thin belts wear much faster. On Regas without Slipmatt the weight will bend the edge of the LP up and the contact to the platter gets worse. and so on…
With other turntables a weight might be a good idea but not with Regas. It also often just sounds bad.
Thanks for the concern. I only put that on occasionally and it is not a heavy weight. I don’t really use it for vibration, but for a small amount of resistance to record slippage (those Rega slipmats are REALLY slippery). I will be using a clamp in the future instead, but it won’t work with the current, stock spindle and has to wait until a replace my subplatter with a Groovetracer. I’m sure there is a tiny bit more bearing wear, but that will be replaced with the subplatter. When I measure the rotation speed, I get the exact same measurement with and without the weight and I don’t put the weight on until the platter is up to speed, so I don’t think the belt is being affected too much. The rotational inertia of the heavy, glass platter is so high, I doubt the motor can feel a difference once the platter is at full speed. Part of the fun of this hobby for me is experimenting with different gear setups. I would say that weight ranks a “meh.”
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Cool if we share these pics on our instagram account?
I love Nataly Dawn!! Also, how do you find the Cooler Masters? I recommended them to a friend based off of Z’s review and he loves them. Finally got to try them and I was really impressed as well.
That would be awesome!
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I helped at an old school turntable shop a while ago, so my knowledge might be outdated. Most Rega users spin the platter by hand before turning on the motor, which was necessary with the old Planars from the 90s and I still recommend it so extend the belt live. Also, many people let their belt driven turntable spin when changing the record, which is why the slipmat should slide to avoid scratching the record. When listening I wouldn’t worry about a slippery slipmat. If you don’t want it to be slippery: I use a carbon-containing rubber mat on my DD Technics, or possibly try leather (note VTA can change).
I can only tell from experience that it is not worth investing a lot of money in Planar upgrades. On my 90’s Planar 2 I had done everything: acrylic platter without slipmat and a different subplates + clamp, but I put everything back to stock with new bearings a long time ago. It’s always hard to believe that all the money you have invested has worsened the sound. The customers didn’t believe us either and always thought we just wanted to sell them new turntables. We once had someone come in who wanted us to change the cables inside the tonearm on his P5. This P5 sounded horrible in direct comparison with a stock one and unfortunately it wasn’t easy to undo.
Low mass turntables are very sensitive and Rega already knows what they are doing. If you want to upgrade a Rega I can only recommend selling the old one and buying a better stock one.
For upgrades and experiments I recommend rather heavy turntables and classic decks like Thorens, Technics, Linn etc…
With your Rega I would continue with the cartridge. With your Schiit Preamp I would stay with MM, because an MC needs a very good preamp to outdo MM s. Remember that the VTA can change because most of them are cartridges are 3mm higher the original Rega one. Therefore, it is best to raise the tonearm and use an asymmetric tonearm weight, otherwise it hit the lid. Or do it like I do and don’t use the stupid lid, since it only worsens the sound anyway.
If you are bored, you can take a 1.5cm piece of plywood and put it on 4 spikes or suspension feet and put your turntable on top, this can improve the sound with regas. The Rega power supply is also an upgrade for the P3.
I wish you lots of fun with your Rega !
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I keep my platter spinning for my whole listening session, so I do appreciate the slipmat. What do you think of the Exact 2 cartridge compared to the Elys 2? I like my Elys, but one always wonders…
How do you like the Hana? Did you need to shim the tonearm, or does it fit stock? I always remove my lid when I play records. You can really feel it vibrating if you leave it on!
Have you ever heard of anyone adding a second tonearm to a Rega? I would love a separate table with a mono cartridge, but I don’t have the room for another turntable.
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I haven’t tried the Rega Cartidges at home and bought my P3 without one. The original Rega ones are not bad and you should invest a bit more to achieve a significant improvement.
I love my Hana, the Ortofon MC Quintet Bronze was on the shoppinglist but the Hana is much more pleasant. Especially the low running noise of the needle is outstanding, even though my Technics is a bit quieter with the high MC amplification. The Hana is extremely light and fits well on Regas. The final impedance must be above 400 Ωwith the Hana, which not all MC preamplifiers support.
I’d avoid heavy cartridges. Goldring 2400, Nagaoka MP 200, Grado Gold 2 Prestige, Ortofon VinylMaster Silver and so on are all good. In the end, it’s a matter of taste.
3mm
Not yet… all the aluminium reinforcement would be missing but that didn’t harm the old planars either.
I would suggest a Jelco TS 350 S maybe?
SME tonearm?
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I thought it was good if the sound seems further away. In car audio the effect was getting the sound to present it’s self on top of the hood vs being able to localize it inside the cab.
Yes, it is good and as it should be, it’s simply that when I had open space there I felt like I could reach out and touch the singers. I have the same effect now but it’s coming from behind and through the rack. I keep trying to look behind the rack to “see” the singers. the sound is fine, its my mind having a weird time with it is all. LOL
I just need to get used to this set-up. Also the girlfriend sneaks up on me easily now because I can’t see past the damned thing 
I already can’t hear her walk in the room, now I look up and wham, surprise every time.
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Yeah Nataly Dawn is amazing. Recently found out they used her song in the new HBO’s Watchmen series, & given that they started playing music from their home / garage just 7 - 8 years ago, pretty impressed.
The cooler masters are really good & pretty balanced. For around $80, don’t think you can go wrong with these. But since I’ve gotten my Argons I’ve rarely had a reason to pick them up though.
So you can’t close the internet site maybe a infrared system must be put in.
Hahaha…that’s one of the reasons i have a girlfriend for 
Oh man a Murder box!! Wow just wow!
So you got HD58X and HE4XXs… Which one of these has more treble/sibilance?
I would say the HD58x, the HE4xx is a very neutral sound (nothing really stands out), but the HD58x with new earpads can be almost painful. I put my old HD650 earpads on the HD58x and it helped a lot. I’m not saying either of them sound bad, but with the HD58x you’ll hear foot steps in games better than say the HE4xx. HE4xx is better for music. The best thing I can say, watch Z’s HE4xx, he has a special way of going nuts over neutral headphones, I prefer something warmer.
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I got HD58Xs and had to put em over a DVD rack for one night to make the pads thinner, and twist the left-right metal parts of the headband to make em squeeze my head a bit, otherwise yeah they were painful. Now they’re warm/neutral and smooth and everything sounds natural.
Surprised to hear the he4xx sounded natural “out of the box”, though. Thanks for the answer!
I can tell that you must use your 650’s a lot. Lol
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Yup, I also used my Mayflower mod Foster T50rp a lot, but alas waiting for the Argon.