Rega P25 Reloaded

by James Leahy

When you want the best phono performance in the world look no further than the amazing Ortofon Jubilee. You can use this cartridge on everything from a Rega P3 all the way up to the totally awesomely spectacular Rega P9! The Jubilee is so versatile and mates outstanding well with Rega tables mainly because of their integral rigidity factor. It is my all time favorite in cost no limit MC cartridges and I have heard many. It just does everything well and will be a future classic, I hope Ortofon keeps this unit in production for eternity.

You too can get great analogue performance with the ultimate in MC phono cartridges and a basic good quality table. So rigid and simple are Rega tables that the best MC cartridges in the world can be used without any fear of compromise from an underperforming rig. Even on an old P25 this table is capable of revealing every ounce of this cartridge earth shattering performance.

This customers P25 was in mint condition and it was a pleasure working on this great unit. I installed the stunning Jubilee and found the combined performance between the table and cartridge to be excellent. It was considered a worthy upgrade to a table that is still very highly regarded as one of Rega's past classics. The combination when tested on my personal system gave immediate results and was money well spent when considering the results achieved.

It is a misconception that you need to have a $5K+ table to make full use of a cartridge this good. You would be very surprised at the synergy that this simple combination will give. I would rather spend more on a good MC cartridge then more on the table and have a lower quality cartridge. Many more giant killing reference phono systems have been built with Rega P3/P3-24 tables and Ortofon MC cartridges than any other combination.

It great news that cartridges are easily swapped between tables and tonearms and can easily be moved to your next upgrade when the time comes. Enjoy the performance of a top of the range MC cartridge now and worry about the rest of your life's problems tomorrow. Just learn to take things one step at a time and don't stress too much about things your cannot control.

The P25 is a celebration designed and produced during our twenty-fifth year manufacturing specialist hi-fi products. Our objective was to produce a turntable that would take a musical step further in performance from the legendary P3 turntable. We quite simply had more money to indulge ourselves in a more sophisticated design.

The minimised high performance plinth derived from the P3 carries a sophisticated electronically controlled ultra low vibration motor assembly. With this design, our skilled production technicians can "trim" the vibrations from the motor. The plinth has a clever removable outer surround made from real solid woods with a variety of finishes allowing you to change your mind about the appearance of your turntable years after you have purchased it!

The platter is hand crafted from floated plate glass 12mm in thickness. This makes for a superb platter material as it has few resonance problems, is extremely flat and has good mass.

The P25 carries a market leading extremely high quality dust cover made from the highest quality acrylics. The mould tool to produce this dust cover would at today's rates cost in excess of £50,000 to produce!

Finally, the P25 carries a high performance version of the legendary RB300 tonearm. The RB600 is lovingly constructed to extremely high tolerances by a dedicated team of production technicians. To further improve musical detail the RB600 carries an extremely high performance Rega designed phono cable assembly with state of the art Neutrik connectors.

SoundStage Rega P25 Review

 

Not everything that is old is over the hill. The Rega P25 has now been superseded by the P5 but is not forgotten.

The great Rega RB600.

Installation of a 6mm Rubber Mat was used to bring up the performance even further.

The difference is substantial when using high-end MC cartridges.

One 4mm spacer to obtain the correct VTA.

The natural timber plinth surround looks horn.

Neutrik connectors.