Anyone using Rega? 7B pairing question

benjaminlea

Wondering if anyone is using Rega with their Polks or has in the past?

I’ve got a beautiful pair of 7B’s with most mods (peerless, sonic caps, mills, cardas litz wiring, cardas binding posts, epoxy’ed magnets.. yet to dynamt) and I’m considering a pairing with the Rega Brio mk2.

My current amp is a crown xls 1002 and it’s great, just feels a little flatter / more neutral since the crossover upgrades.

I’ve read a lot about Rega and I’m thinking think will be a good pairing.

Would love to hear if you own or have owned one and your experience or if this would be a good pairing!

TroyD

I think it would be just fine...The 7’s mate well with a wide variety of gear...

maxward

Brio is a small integrated.

benjaminlea

I went to audition them both today with some dynaudio bookshelf’s which were probably closest to my 7b’s.. albeit $2500, they are 6ohm and a 2 way setup.

Both sound great but was hoping someone was an owner and or has used one in their Polk setup before.

I have a $2k budget for an amp, it’ll be a Elex R or Brio likely but it never hurts to ask the forum first!

Gardenstater

Just on watts alone, although neither give dynamic headroom in their specs, I'd be more inclined towards the 72W Elex R vs 50W Brio, unless you never like it loud. These speakers are easy to drive but when I was in college and was driving mine with a 55wpc Technics SA500 Receiver I did occasionally blow the tweeter fuses and you don't have any anymore. You will be going from 215wpc so that is something to bear in mind. That is a British brand that I am not familiar with. The lifetime warranty on the Elex sounds very interesting, depending upon if they consider solid state components failing to be wear and tear.

I know in Australia shipping is something you may want to avoid and it sounds like you want to restrict your choices to brand new?

Hope you continue to enjoy your modded Polks as they continue to break in

Emlyn

Definitely consider stepping up to the Elex R amp. I would consider the Brio to be a good match for smaller bookshelf speakers which the Monitor 7s are not.

Or, consider one of the newish Rotel integrated amps like the A12 or A14.

Clipdat

This level of performance from a Rega integrated amplifier doesn't inspire me: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rega-io-review-stereo-amplifier.27705/

Emlyn

Considering the Rega IO weighs 6.4 lbs and isn't designed to run 4 ohm speaker loads, "testing" one with a continuous 4 ohm load until it starts to smoke doesn't make much sense to me.



I didn't bother to read if the Audio Science guy actually listened to 8 ohm speakers being driven by the amp in real world use. I suspect it wouldn't sound fantastic, and it may be overpriced for what it is, but it's probably serviceable to own for small speakers.

benjaminlea

Gardenstater wrote: »

Just on watts alone, although neither give dynamic headroom in their specs, I'd be more inclined towards the 72W Elex R vs 50W Brio, unless you never like it loud. These speakers are easy to drive but when I was in college and was driving mine with a 55wpc Technics SA500 Receiver I did occasionally blow the tweeter fuses and you don't have any anymore. You will be going from 215wpc so that is something to bear in mind. That is a British brand that I am not familiar with. The lifetime warranty on the Elex sounds very interesting, depending upon if they consider solid state components failing to be wear and tear.

I know in Australia shipping is something you may want to avoid and it sounds like you want to restrict your choices to brand new?

Hope you continue to enjoy your modded Polks as they continue to break in

Rega make really incredible amps. I auditioned both on the weekend with some dynaudio bookshelf speakers that are 6 ohm and apparently a little difficult to drive and both amps ( Brio and Elex R) I wasn’t able to get even to 11’oclock on the dial before it was too loud.

You’re right, they do offer a lifetime warranty which is impressive!

My speakers are doing well post mods. They sound better and better every day, many thanks for the hundreds of messages and advice you gave me!

benjaminlea

Clipdat wrote: »

This level of performance from a Rega integrated amplifier doesn't inspire me: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rega-io-review-stereo-amplifier.27705/

I didn’t even bother to read this tbh. Also, IO is their entry level, not an amp I’m looking at.

benjaminlea

This was my audition.

benjaminlea

I was also lucky enough to I audition these. At $250,000 the Rega amp didn’t sound as good 😂

Emlyn

I'd like to go live there.

Gardenstater

You're welcome Benjamin! You will have a nicer amp than I have I think. If those were Dynaudio Evoke20's, the sensitivity for them is 86dB compared to your speakers at 91dB. That means, if you do the math, it only takes 32% as much power to play your 7B's at the same sPL volume level. But one thing ya gotta remember is perceived volume is super room dependent. If your listening room at home has lots of openings to other rooms that would be one thing that would really suck the sPL's out. I think you are going to probably be just fine though, especially since you have a subwoofer. I think one of the things driving me to put the volume up too high in the early days with that receiver was because I was trying hard to get some decent bass out of the system, which it wasn't really capable of with lousy speaker cables and a low damping factor receiver (24).

Enjoy your path down the rabbit hole. You've got lots of mods still to do

Clipdat

How'd those PMCs sound?