Rummaging in the loft I found a cardboard box with my Rega Planar 3 bought in the late 70s from Hampstead Hifi. Inside alongside the glass platter and acrylic lid were two large sheets from Rega — Hints and tips on using your Rega turntable and a simple user guide proclaiming:
the best looking turntable you’ve ever set ears on.
Original Rega Planar 3 Hints and tips
Original Rega Planar 3 User Guide
As you can see time in the loft had not been kind to the paper but you can’t miss Riga’s typeface evoking the 70s, a reminder of Yes and computer age topography. A close look at the text suggests it’s been printed and traced over by hand as the lines wiggle – would be interesting to know. Produced some years before comic sans and desktop publishing that made setting copy so much easier albeit uniformly consistent.
The user guide’s illustrations show accurate photographic perspective rendered to have a hand finished artistic look distinct from the mass produced printed manuals that came with the Japanese imports. The hints and tips includes a hand drawn illustration of the Planar 3 complete with R200 tonearm. Simple tips avoiding cleaning fluids and dust-bug type devices while record is being played are helpful, others such as not worrying about visible dust or keeping the lid closed when playing not quite so.
After an hour or so to allow the deck’s temperature to warm up from the cold loft I tried placing the platter onto the black plastic spindle. It did not fit. The glass stood proud from the plastic drive pulley and refused impactive therapy to sit down without wobbling! I’d last had the Rega working about ten years ago without problem so the plastic spindle must have expanded or the glass contracted. A quick spin in the DeWalt drill with fine warding file had the spindle fitting again. Maybe I should have waited longer for the glass to warm up.
Connecting the Rega to a nearby Beomaster 3300 to check if it still spins at 33 1/3 rpm required a pre-amp for the low output Ortofon MC100 moving coil cartridge. I’d found my old Hitachi HCA-7500 boxed up alongside the Riga and connected it up not forgetting the screw terminal earth screen. Spinning it up with manual push and switching on looked good with a small strobe disk. When packing away ten years ago I’d forgotten to remove the neoprene belt so I’m surprised it still ran evenly. I hunted for some vinyl and found Creedence Clearwater Revival Greatest Hits and set down the Ortofon to listen. Oh yes it still works, the Fogerty’s guitars and vocals puts a spell on you.
Rega Planar 3 R200 Tonearm Ortofon MC100
PS — Looking at the Rega logo design on the original Planar 3 always reminded me of BYTE magazine so after a little digging I find the Countdown typeface designed by Colin Brignall in 1965. Here’s what rega looks like in Countdown:
After some kerning and squaring out a bit to make circular echoing the LP and it’s not far off.
Countdown was available in Letraset, I remember using it for some home-brew projects. And here’s BYTE for comparison:
PPS — tucked away in the Rega’s box was a Zerostat anti-static pistol. This device does actually work. Best demonstration is using a ballon charged up with a woolly jumper and stuck to a wall. Point the Zerostat at the ballon and it falls straight off. It discharges static on vinyl records using high voltage generated from a piezo-electric device when the trigger is squeezed. Can’t recall how much it cost to buy back in the 70s but at nearly £55 for today’s model you would need to have a vast collection of Dusty Springfield to make it worthwhile.
ZEROSTAT Anti-static gun
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