Rega P2 up and running

[jhawk92]

Well, after a bit of work, the Rega Planar 2 I bought from Pland is up and spinning vinyl for me. Turns out, the little pulley on the motor spindle had worked its way loose and was rubbing against the platter. So, after some troubleshooting with Pat, Mobile, and the folks at Lauerman Audio (Rega importers here in the States), I pulled off the pulley, cleaned everything up, and reglued it back to proper levels.

Took a bit of time to set up the cartridge, as this is the first "real" TT I have used, and still fine-tuning the stylus pressure, but so far, I am pleased with the sound. I have pulled out my 60 or so albums from storage and starting to play them again. Overall they are in good condition, since I bought them, played a few times, and recorded to tape (long before CD).

On the advice of folks here on the board, I made a call to the Disc Doctor and ordered up some of his magic elixir for cleaning the records, as well as supplies for care and feeding of the stylus. Dwayne (sp?) is a great guy, very knowledgeable and down-to-earth. Ended up chatting with him for almost an hour on all things TT, and he gave me some good ideas for future listening. Stuff should be here next week, so next weekend I'll be cleaning some records and then doing some serious vinyl/CD comparisons. For now, my albums sound good, but have a fair amount of surface noise, so that is skewing my ears.

I am now on the lookout for good vinyl deals to compare some of the "audiophile" recordings; heavy vinyl, half-speed mastering, MFSL, etc. Did get a great copy of STYX Paradise Theatre 1/2 speed master that sounds great. I have a good record store near the house, and was there last weekend. Picked up a few albums (AC/DC, Back in Black, Meatloaf, Bat out of Hell, and Lindsay Buckingham, Go Insane) that I am working on now. They need to be cleaned but that will come with time.

I may have found one of those good deals folks are always talking about. There, in the "new arrivals" milk crates, still to be sorted, was Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philidelphia Orchestra, "The Tchaikovsky Album, Great Orchestral Masterpieces" on Columbia. All seven records are in great shape, as are the sleeves and box. And, flipping it over, only $15. Couldn't go wrong there, as I have heard one or two of these separately, but here they were all together. These will be cleaned off as well, and will have a good audition soon.

So, I just wanted to publicly thank Pat and Kelly for all the great advice, and Pat especially, for a great deal on the TT. Guess my 2-ch system will have to wait since I didn't win anything from the Storyteller contest, but now that I have a turntable, I have the first piece.

Rob