Rega Planar 3 Review: $1,125, Seven Years, vs Planar 2

The short answer: The Rega Planar 3 is still the turntable I recommend first in 2026, and I have owned mine since 2018. The bare table is $1,125. The RB330 is the reason to buy it, and there is no built-in phono stage, so plan on something like a Schiit Mani. If you want a factory Nd5 and push-button speed change, that package is the RS Edition at $1,795. I have not heard the RS. The table I live with came with an Elys 2, which I later swapped for a Nagaoka MP-110.

I bought my Rega Planar 3 in October 2018. In audio terms that makes this less of a review and more of a long marriage. I have moved it between rooms, swapped its cartridge, changed what sits downstream of it more than once, and spent a genuinely silly amount of time solving one small problem that still is not fully solved. Seven years in, it is still the turntable I point people to when they ask where to start, and it is still teaching me things.

That is the highest compliment I can pay a piece of gear: I have had every chance to replace it and never wanted to.

Is the Rega Planar 3 still worth it in 2026?

Yes, and it is not close. The Planar 3 has been the default answer to “what is the best turntable around this price” for years, and nothing has come along to unseat it. The reason is philosophy. Rega builds a turntable as a lightweight, rigid structure that does one thing well: it keeps the record spinning at a stable speed and lets the arm read the groove without adding its own noise. There is no chunky plinth, no gimmick, no feature list padded out to justify the price. There is a good motor, a glass platter, and the part that actually matters most, the RB330 tonearm.

The RB330 is the reason to buy a Planar 3 instead of a Planar 1 or 2. It is a genuinely excellent arm at this price, precise and well damped, and it is the component that most turntables in this range cheap out on. Everything Rega does is in service of getting that arm to track cleanly. Once you hear what a good arm does for imaging and timing, the spec sheets on flashier tables stop mattering.

Planar 3 vs Planar 2: is the step up worth it?

I have not owned a Planar 2, so this is not a listening shootout. It is the comparison people actually search, and the differences are concrete.

US street price, checked October 2026: the Planar 3 is $1,125 without a cartridge. The same number shows up at Suncoast Audio Direct, The Music Room, and Hawthorne Stereo. With a factory Nd3 it is $1,395. The Planar 2 is sold as a complete table, about $775 with the Carbon or $895 with an Nd3.

What you actually pay extra for:

• Tonearm. RB220 on the 2, RB330 on the 3. Tighter bearing tolerances, a better cable with Neutrik plugs, and the arm I have lived with for seven years. This is the reason I bought the 3.
• Platter. 10mm float glass on the 2, 12mm on the 3.
• Plinth. The 3 is the first in this range with Rega’s double brace between the hub bearing and the arm mount.

If you want plug and play at a lower number, the Planar 2 is the honest cheaper sibling. If you want the arm you can keep, and a table that still has a path (cartridge, phono stage, outboard supply), the extra money is the 3. That is the call I made in 2018, and I would make it again.

Specs, Nd5, and the Planar 3 RS

Once you have decided on a Planar 3, the 2026 question is which box to order. I have not heard the Nd5 or the RS. What follows is the published hardware and the US street prices, checked October 18, 2026, not a listening comparison.

The standard Planar 3, from Rega’s spec sheet and the Music Direct listing:

• Tonearm: hand-assembled RB330, with the low-capacitance cable and Neutrik plugs.
• Motor: 24 V, low noise. Speeds are 33 and 45. On the standard table you move the belt by hand. A Mini DIN on the back accepts the optional Neo PSU if you want electronic speed change later.
• Platter and plinth: 12 mm float-glass platter, double brace between the bearing and the arm mount.
• Output: RCA, phono level. No built-in stage.
• Size, lid closed: 447 x 117 x 360 mm (about 17.6 x 4.6 x 14.2 inches). Weight is 6.0 kg, 13.2 lb.
• Finish: gloss black, white, or red, plus light oak effect.

The price ladder at Music Direct the same day:

What you get	US price
Planar 3, no cartridge	$1,125
Planar 3 with factory Nd3	$1,395
Planar 3 with factory Nd5	$1,595
Planar 3 RS Edition	$1,795

The RS is not a different arm or a different platter. It is the same RB330 and the same 12 mm glass, on a brushed aluminium HPL plinth (the laminate Rega uses on the Planar 6 and up), with a factory Nd5, a Neo MK2 supply whose anti-vibration circuit is hand-tuned to that motor, a CNC pulley, Rega’s reference EBLT belt, and a smoked lid. Rega publishes 1.75 g tracking pressure for both the Nd3 and the Nd5. Electronic speed on the Neo MK2 steps in 0.01 RPM.

The $670 between the bare table and the RS is those parts, not a secret better bearing. Buy the bare 3 if you already know which cartridge you want, which is what I would do again. Buy the Nd3 package if you want a current Rega cartridge mounted and you do not care about push-button speed. Buy the RS if you want the Nd5 and the Neo in one box and you do not want to shop them separately. I cannot tell you the RS sounds better than a standard 3 with a good cartridge. I have not had one in the room.

The one upgrade I made: the Nagaoka MP-110

The table I bought in October 2018 shipped with a Rega Elys 2. That moving magnet was honestly good enough that most people never need to touch it. Current US stock is different: the deck is sold bare, or with an Nd3 or Nd5 already fitted, which is the ladder above. I touched mine anyway. I swapped in a Nagaoka MP-110, a moving magnet cartridge that has a bit of a cult following for good reason. Where the Rega house sound leans lively and forward, the Nagaoka adds a little warmth and body, a fuller midrange that suits a lot of the music I actually listen to. It is not a night-and-day transformation. It is the kind of change that makes long listening sessions a little easier and a little richer.

If you are considering the same swap, do it with eyes open. This is where the “modern classic” turntable meets the reality of tinkering.

The retrofit nobody warns you about

Here is the part the tidy reviews skip. Rega designs its arm and its plinth around Rega cartridges. Drop a different body in, and the geometry may not line up. In my case the Nagaoka sat too low, which throws off the arm height and, with it, the angle the stylus meets the record. So I retrofitted it: I added spacers to raise the cartridge and get the arm back up off the base to where it should sit.

It is not hard, and it is not scary, but it is real work, and it is worth knowing before you assume a cartridge upgrade is a five-minute plug and play. If you are the kind of person who enjoys dialing a thing in, this is a pleasant afternoon. If you want to unbox and forget, stick with the stock Elys 2, which needs none of this.

Living with it, including the dust cover I still have not solved

Seven years of daily use surfaces the small stuff, and I would not trust a review that pretends everything is perfect. My one ongoing annoyance is the dust cover. The Rega plexiglass lid does not quite fit right anymore, a knock-on effect of the cartridge and setup changes, and I have never found a clean solution. It is a genuinely minor thing, but it is the kind of small unsolved problem that a real owner accumulates and a spec sheet never mentions. I have filed it under “future project,” which in this hobby is a category with a lot of residents.

None of this has ever touched the sound, which is the point. The Planar 3 is mechanically simple enough that living with it is easy. Speed changes are manual, you move the belt by hand rather than flicking a switch, and that is the tradeoff for the price. If that bothers you, Rega sells an outboard power supply that adds electronic speed change, but I have never felt the need.

The phono stage question

The Planar 3 has no built-in phono preamp, and this catches first-time buyers out. A turntable’s output is tiny and needs a specific kind of amplification before it hits your system. You solve this one of two ways: a dedicated phono preamp, or an amp with a phono input built in.

I run a Schiit Mani, a small, affordable, and genuinely capable phono stage that has become a bit of a default in this world for good reason. I have also run the Planar 3 into the stock phono stages built into a couple of integrated amps over the years, and it works fine that way too. The Mani is the better result, but the honest takeaway is that the turntable is not fussy about what it feeds. It just needs a phono-level input somewhere. If you already own an amp with a phono stage, start there and upgrade later. I am a longtime Schiit user in general, and their gear has a way of quietly earning its place in a rack, the same way I found with their BUF and Eitr boxes.

How it sounds in my system

My current chain is a little unusual, so let me lay it out plainly: the Planar 3 with the Nagaoka runs into the Schiit Mani, out to my WiiM Ultra acting as a preamp, and then into a Naim Uniti Atom. It is a setup that lets vinyl live alongside streaming in the same system without either feeling like an afterthought, and the WiiM Ultra earns its keep as the hub that ties it together.

The sound is what keeps me here. The Planar 3 has that Rega quality people call pace, rhythm, and timing, a way of making music feel like it is moving forward with intent rather than just playing. Drums land. Basslines walk. There is an energy to it that more expensive, more “refined” tables sometimes iron out. With the Nagaoka softening the top end slightly, I get that drive without any of the fatigue that lively tables can bring on a long evening. It is not the last word in resolution or soundstage width, and it does not pretend to be. It is musical in the specific way that makes you play one more record when you should be going to bed.

Who the Rega Planar 3 is for

Buy it if you want a turntable you can grow with rather than grow out of. It rewards small upgrades, a better cartridge, a nicer phono stage, an outboard power supply, without ever demanding them, and it holds its value if you ever do move on. It is for the person who wants to actually listen to records, not fuss over a machine, but who also does not mind the occasional pleasant afternoon of dialing something in.

It is not for you if you want automatic operation, a built-in phono stage, or a lid you never have to think about. Some of that is the price of Rega’s less-is-more approach, and one of it, in my case, is a dust cover I am still quietly at war with.

Seven years and one cartridge later, the Planar 3 is still the turntable to beat at the price, and still the one I recommend first. 9 / 10.

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Related: The WiiM Ultra that anchors this system gets the full writeup in my WiiM Ultra review, and the amp at the end of the chain is covered in my Naim Uniti Atom review.