Rega’s Planar 3 turntable was introduced in 1976, the same year What Hi-Fi? was born. Since then it has remained one of our go-to recommendations for sensibly-priced record players. While the deck hasn’t changed much in appearance since then, just about every part of it has been refined at some point. The most significant milestones have been the addition of the legendary RB300 arm in 1983, the change to the still-current low-noise 24v motor in 2007 and the extensive redesign in 2016.
In that 2016 redesign, the light but rigid plinth design continued, but the area between the main bearing and arm was further reinforced by a pair of phenolic resin braces. These added even more stiffness between those critical points without the penalty of significant extra mass. You should know that Rega thinks that structural mass absorbs energy from the music and increases the transmission of unwanted resonances, and so should be minimised where possible. The current RB330 tonearm was introduced at this time and the quality of Planar 3’s finish was improved markedly too.
