Rega turned fifty this year and the British manufacturer has been busy celebrating its birthday with a number of new products like the recently introduced AYA loudspeaker and the 50th Anniversary version of the Planar 3 turnable.
Both of those products, however, take a backseat to the realization of Rega’s most ambitious product since its inception in 1973 — the Rega Naia Turntable.
The turntable took much longer than expected to get to market and that was probably fortuitous for Rega which had to contend with the pandemic, supply chain issues that forced some its customers in North America to wait 8 to 10 months for their turntables, and inflationary pressures on consumers.
Rega limited production of the flagship and experimental Naiad turntable to only 50 units at £30,000 (38 have already been sold and shipped) and with so much competition from VPI, Linn, Clearaudio, Brinkmann, Thorens, Kuzma, and SME in that price range for a reference caliber turntable — it was going to have to think outside the box in a way to make the Naia more palatable to Rega’s customer base that is not accustomed to spending that kind of money on a turntable.
£9200 gets you the table but no cartridge; users can add Rega’s statement Aphelion 2 moving coil (MC) cartridge for an additional £3465 on its own.
Once the screaming subsides, Rega has decided to shave £655 off the price of the cartridge if you order the turntable with it pre-installed. The total damage on that comes to a rather humbling £12,000.
Innovation
The Rega RB Titanium Tonearm which features a titanium vertical bearing housing and spindle, tungsten balance weight shaft and weight, is a new design. The tonearm also features Rega’s single-piece aluminum arm tube.
The trickle down technology from the Naiad includes a central bearing made from ZTA zirconium-toughened alumina (ceramic) for maximum performance and rigidity.
A triple drive belt is used for improved stability and speed performance and users benefit from Rega’s latest ceramic platter that offers improved resonance control.
The Naia features the same AC Power Supply Unit used by the Rega Planar 10.
The Rega Naia turntable is the result of years of painstaking development which was used to create the now famous Naiad test bed turntable.
The Naia takes the best of this development and technology and transfers it into a production ready version without compromise. The Naia is packed with ground-breaking features, materials and technology developed by Rega over many years to reach new levels of vinyl replay.
The Naia takes their pioneering low mass, high rigidity plinth technology to the next level by using a Graphene impregnated, carbon fibre skeletal plinth with Tancast 8 foam core.
This ultra rigid structure is then strengthened further using two ceramic aluminium oxide braces, the same material used to create the redesigned, resonance controlled ceramic platter with improved flywheel effect and complex profile.
Key Features
- Graphene impregnated Carbon Fibre skeletal plinth with Tancast 8 foam core
- ZTA Zirconium toughened alumina (ceramic) central bearing
- RB titanium tonearm: One piece titanium vertical bearing and Titanium vertical spindle assembly
- Tungsten balance weight shaft and weight
- Ceramic top and bottom braces
- Reference advanced fully adjustable power supply
- Resonance controlled ceramic platter with improved flywheel effect and complex profile
- Low mass skeletal aluminium feet
- Triple Reference drive belts for improved stability and drive characteristics.
- Rega Aphelion 2 MC factory fitted (optional)
- Lifetime warranty against manufacture defects
For more information: rega.co.uk/products/naia
Related reading: Discover more turntable news and reviews
Steve
October 6, 2023 at 9:29 pm
Will it make a bad pressing sound better?
Ian White
October 7, 2023 at 2:16 pm
Steve,
Depends on the rest of the system.
IW