Rega Spacers: The Final Frontier

So you've got a Rega turntable and you love the sound and the performance bang you get for the buck, but you don't like that you can't easily adjust VTA/SRA because the rear of the arm is bolted down.

That leaves you with a Rega cartridge designed to provide the correct SRA on the arm, or another cartridge brand with a less than severe stylus profile that's not affected by VTA/SRA, or you can chance that the Shibata stylus equipped cartridge of your dreams just might accidentally be at the correct height to produce the idea 92 degree SRA—not exactly the ideal situation.

Rega does make spacers that you can insert under each of the three screws locking down the latest iteration Rega arm but that requires you to remove the entire arm, put the spacers on the screws and then lock them down. And if the spacer you chose doesn't provide sufficient height or produces too much lift, you have to remove and start over. Not fun!

. The German turntable manufacturer Acoustic Signature and designer Gunther Frohnhoefer have a great solution in the form of spacers that only require you to loosen the screws. You don't have to remove the arm. The Stainless Steel spacer set allows you to adjust the height from 0.5mm to 3.5mm in 0.5mm steps. You can see from the image how the ingenious design works.

Of course if your cartridge of choice requires the arm to move down from its lowest position, you are out of luck but chances are you're going to need to go up to achieve 92 degrees.

You'll have to troll the Internet to find the spacers, which will probably be available at an Acoustic Signature dealer with an Internet presence. I'm not sure of the price, but I believe it was around $75 for the set, which is not a high price to pay to get your SRA set correctly! If you own an older Rega with the cylindrical mounting base, many companies make VTA adjusters, some of which are sleeves that can fit into the Rega opening and so don't require any hole-opening.

COMMENTS
sbhifi's picture

It's easy to adjust SRA 'down' on a Rega. Just as you might shim the arm up to raise a Rega's SRA/VTA, you would shim the platter up to lower SRA/VTA. USB microscopes have opened up a new world of completely random SRAs when the tonearm is parallel to the LP - and shims bring out a new range of possibilities or Rega users. wink

X