ON TEST
42 Australian Hi-Fi http://www.aushifi.com
Rega Planar 8 Turntable
The Aura is also the most expensive phono
preamplifier I’ve ever had in my own home,
because it retails for $7,999. To my mind,
Rega’s excellent Aria MM/MC phono stage
would have been a better ‘fit’ with this Planar
8/Apheta 2 combo, but I wasn’t about to
knock back a chance to hear an Aura in my
own system.
Speed accuracy was spot-on. I used the
old-fashioned strobe method to check this
(though it can’t be that old-fashioned, because
Rega currently sells a strobe card/strobe light
kit, and recommends their use in the Planar 8
Owners’ Manual) and found that the Rega Pla-
nar 8’s rotational speed was exactly 33.33rpm
and 45rpm (I was using a 230V/50Hz mains,
though thanks to the provision of the Rega
PSU, it should make no difference if you’re
using 120V/60Hz, or some other variant.)
For my check on wow and flutter levels
(and the sound of a grand piano) I turned to
Erik Satie’s best-known works, his Gymnopédies
and Gnossiennes. These days they’re probably
best-known because at some stage, every child
who is learning piano will have one or the
other of these works propped up on the lyre
by their piano teacher. Indeed this is exactly
how I discovered Satie, and also how I learned
that just because a piece of music sounds
simple, and the score looks straightforward on
the page, it doesn’t mean that it’s easy to play!
Indeed while listening to Gymnopédies (I prefer
my 20-year-old version by Reinbert de Leeuw,
but I am not sure you will still be able to get
this on vinyl, though it’s certainly available
on CD) I reflected that Satie is so famous
for his so-called ‘minimalism’ and ‘novelty’
compositions that many people don’t realise
that he was a true musical pioneer, the first to
use a prepared piano, the first to write ‘back-
ground’ music, and the first to compose music
specifically for film (René Clair’s Entr’Acte)...
plus of course he did invent minimalist music
decades before Philip Glass or Stephen Reich
(listen to his Avant-dernières pensées!). And of
course he also thought of simplifying male
attire ‘way before Philip Adams, having worn
nothing except the one single suit for ten
years straight. (Actually, it was more than one,
but the seven grey velvet corduroy suits he
did wear over this period were identical.) John
Cage famously said of Satie: ‘It’s not a question
of Satie’s relevance. He’s indispensable.’
As you can see, my mind tends to wander
when listening to Satie, but I remained suffi-
ciently focused to be able to hear from the pu-
rity of the sustained piano notes that the Rega
Planar 8 was totally free from wow and flutter,and that the sound of the Apheta 2 was ex-
traordinarily good... exceptional in fact. The
tracking was exemplary: whenever a key was
struck on the piano, the attack of the cartridge
was immediate and precise, plus there was no
overhang at all. I was hearing exactly what de
Leeuw was playing, nothing more, nothing
less. And there was not a skerrick of distortion
audible until I reached the innermost grooves,
and I think we can put that down to the
pressing, rather than the Apheta 2. The Aphe-
ta 2’s spectral balance was excellent, with a
beautifully full sound in the lower octaves and
a tinkling purity in the upper octaves, yet be-
hind everything the percussive nature of the
instrument was ever-present, just as it should
be. The Rega Apheta 2 proved itself more than
capable of reproducing the sonic complexities
of full orchestral works, indeed I imagine that
it will be the quality of the pressings you play
that will limit its performance, rather than
the performance of the cartridge itself, so if
your LP collection has a goodly proportion of
half-speed masters, 180g special pressings and
the like, I think you’re in for a treat: Probably,
indeed you’ll be blown away! I was certain-
ly blown away by my newly-acquired (but
second-hand) version of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony by Seiji Ozawa and the New
Philharmonia Orchestra, on two Philips
LPs. I know Beethoven’s Ninth is most famous
for its glorious choral finale in the fourth
movement, in which soloists and chorus sing
Frederich Schiller’s poem Ode to Joy (‘An die
Freude’) and I have to admit that I’m a sucker
for it as well. But everyone seems to overlook
the opening bars, which at the original perfor-
mance were totally different to any symphony
ever composed previously. Rather than intro-
ducing a theme, Beethoven first just hints at
what might develop, using different rhythms,
sounds and part-melodies to introduce a
sense of suspense, a quiet before a storm. The
storm begins with the first thematic element,
those triple ascending notes that seem to
conclude... but then, to our dismay, don’t.
Then there’s the sound of the trumpet entry
which, as delivered by the Planar 8/Apheta 2/
Aura combo, was heraldic in its glory, with
the brassy sound delivered immaculately. And
when the flutes chime in shortly after, playing
in unison with the clarinets, I could hear all
the instruments separately... yet together. And
under it all the tympani pounding out the
bass, with the sound of felts hitting calf skin
making my own skin crawl. Totally majestic!
When the fourth movement starts, after the
initial orchestral flurry, we hear that incredible
massed string sound, and yet again the Rega
combo does more than rise to the occasion, it
really nails it! The depth and vibrancy of the
string sound is breathtaking.