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The Vinyl Anachronist: Surviving the Analog One-Two Punch

By Marc Phillips

February 2006

On October 15, 2005, Richard E Flynn, proprietor of Red Trumpet Ltd, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection with the US Bankruptcy Court of Middle Pennsylvania. Before this starts sounding too much like an ordinary news story, let me interject by saying that this is bad news for vinyl lovers everywhere, and for the first time in years I feel that the glorious Vinyl Renaissance may have already peaked.

For those who don’t know, Red Trumpet was an Internet website that sold, among other things, new vinyl, turntables, cartridges, tonearms, phono preamps, and record cleaning accessories. Quite frankly, they were one of the very best. My introduction to them was through Myles Astor, editor of the erstwhile audio magazine Ultimate Audio. I used to write record reviews for Myles, and once or twice I complained about being unable to find certain LPs I was assigned to critique. “Check Red Trumpet,” Myles told me. “They have everything.” And so they did.

While they weren’t my first choice for new vinyl (I prefer the personal, friendly service I get from David at VinylMatters.com), they were always a great alternative when the vinyl going got tough. Their website was slick, easy to navigate, and their prices were always low, too. But what all this professionalism disguised was that Red Trumpet was essentially a one-man operation, not the huge corporate conglomerate some clever web designer made it appear to be. When Red Trumpet went down, it went down fast, leaving many orders unfilled, and many audiophiles panicky.

I felt bad for the customers who appeared to be out thirty, fifty, even a hundred bucks, when their LP orders were lost in a legally protected limbo. Many of them shrugged their shoulders and thought, oh well, back to the bricks-and-mortar record stores. I could almost see their confidence in on-line record stores, which over the last few years had grown into the primary driving force in new LP sales, evaporate into thin air.

My feelings were somewhat mixed, however, when I started hearing from the guys who were out hundreds, even thousands of dollars, because they were still waiting for their VPI Scouts and Rega Planar 7s to be delivered to their doorsteps. Things could have been worse, I guess – Red Trumpet also sold products like the $30,000 SME 30 turntable and the $19,000 VAC Renaissance monoblock amplifier. But I still get angry when people order a relatively delicate and precise instrument like a turntable rig, only to have it shipped thousands of miles by people who wouldn’t know a Nottingham SpaceDeck from a DVD copy of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

I’ve been harping about this for years. Always buy an analog rig from a local dealer after you’ve auditioned it yourself. Never buy a turntable from a mail order firm. And for God’s sake, if it’s a really nice turntable, the dealer should come to your house and set it up for you. These are the basics, along with cleaning your records regularly and storing your LPs vertically. Turntables are relatively complicated mechanical devices with lots of moving parts that can easily break when dropped. I’ve snapped the cantilevers off of cartridges by merely looking at them the wrong way. Imagine what your friendly neighborhood postman can do.

All’s well that ends with a call to your credit card company

After a few weeks, it appeared that most of Red Trumpet’s disgruntled, frustrated, and abandoned customers received satisfaction, be it from credit card chargebacks that they initiated themselves, or by credits that magically appeared on their account statements without any specific explanations. They were very fortunate, considering how Chapter 7 bankruptcies are handled in the United States, with almost no way to recover lost funds.

This could have turned out a lot worse, with thousands of dejected vinyl-loving souls chucking their beloved Dual 1229s and AR-XAs into dumpsters, feeling that all is lost in this cold, MP3-embracing world. As it stands, what we really have is lot of former Red Trumpet customers wondering if they should now shop at Music Direct, or Audio Advisor, or The Elusive Disc, or Audiophile International, or some other place they haven’t even heard about yet.

The answer is yes. Shop at all of those places. They’re all good. Music Direct and Audio Advisor, in particular, are large, stable companies who probably aren’t going to disappear overnight like Red Trumpet did. And The Elusive Disc and Audiophile International are staffed by people who are extremely knowledgeable and obsessive about record collecting, and know a valuable LP when they see it. And I’m still partial to another one-man operation, the aforementioned Vinyl Matters, because I like it when the guy remembers the last purchase you made from him, and he asks you how you liked it, and then recommends something else that turns out to be really good, too.

Of course you could always pry yourself out of that fancy-schmancy Eames chair in your listening room, open up the phone book, and see what record stores are located nearby. We’ve all wandered into used record stores that were filled with nothing but filthy rummage-sale rejects, or new albums that were placed in the cut-out bins three days after their release, only to remain there for the next thirty-five years.

But more often than not, I’ve found that most used record stores are at least experimenting with new release sections, and there are always a few surprises. And yes, there are still new LPs that can be occasionally found in the big chain record stores. Even some of the DJ-oriented shops can yield some true finds. And there’s always e-Bay, which has more than its share of sealed and/or mint LPs.

And now for a solid left hook…

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Hey, buddy, why the long face?” The horse replies, “Because they’ve discontinued the Rega Planar 2.

I was astounded when this was announced. Between the demise of Red Trumpet, and the discontinuation of the P2, I was reeling. You see, for years I’ve been saying that you need to spend about US$500 on a turntable before you can proudly proclaim that to you, LPs sound better than CDs. (Taking good care of your records, of course, is the second part of that equation.) The reason why I came up with that specific amount was because that’s how much a new Rega Planar 2 cost. To this day I am unimpressed with any turntable that costs less, be it a Music Hall, or a Project, or especially a Technics SL-1200.

In fact, I started suggesting that people buy old Duals and ARs and Garrards before buying one of those new-fangled under-achievers. (This was before I realized that a properly restored Garrard 301 or 401 could cost way more than $500.) So many people e-mailed me complaining about the US$500 Rule, so I had to come up with something to appease them. But when it comes right down to it, the Rega Planar 2, and its slightly modified successor, the P2, is the very definition of entry-level when it comes to analog joy.

Once I had you convinced of that, of course, I would usually try to talk you into buying a Rega Planar 3 for only about US$200 more. The difference between the two was not subtle, and for most people, the Rega Planar 3 (and, of course, the newer P3) is all the turntable 90% of the analog-loving public needs.

And perhaps this is what ultimately led to the demise of the P2. When you look at the two tables side by side, they look very similar. The P3 has a thicker plinth, and it has the RB-300 tonearm, which is better than the stock RB-250 on the P2. But this is where it gets interesting. Anyone who knows anything about Rega tonearms knows that the RB-250, because of its lack of a couple of crucial parts found on its big brother, actually lends itself to some fairly serious modifications that makes it a much better arm. It is very possible, in other words, to make a Rega P2 sound better than a Rega P3, for about the same cost, or maybe just a little more.

That brings up the question of what will ultimately happen to the RB-250 arm. Because it is used in a lot of OEM applications, it will probably stay on the market. But one of the main reasons to stick with my recommendation of the P2 is because of the upgrade path. Spend your $500 now, and down the line, when you have a raging case of Analog Fever, send the arm in to Origin Live or Incognito or some other modder, and for a relatively small investment, you can really start to have fun with your lowly P2. But not anymore.

Save the P2! Save the P2!

Basically, I put my money where my mouth is. I bought one of the last P2s. Actually, from what I hear, there are a lot of new P2s left, so you can still do the same. My wife is going to use it in a modest second system, but I plan, over the next year or so, to play around with it to see how much performance I can squeeze out of it.

Completely stock, with the new Bias 2 cartridge, the Rega P2 is still an impressively simple record player. I had a chance to buy some Music Hall MMF 2.1s and Project Debuts from a clearance warehouse for an extremely low price, and I was disgusted at how cheap and toy-like these tables seemed in comparison to something like the P2. Don’t get me wrong – the P2 looks positively silly next to my Michell Orbe SE. But on its own, it’s nicely finished in a utilitarian sort of way.

As for the sound, it’s not bad, either. There hasn’t been a Rega turntable in my household for almost three years, a surprising statement from someone who has been accused more than once of being paid under the table by Roy Gandy himself.

The P3 and the P25 I previously owned always had a crisp, lively house sound that I loved, and the P2 has more than its share of this quality. It can sound congested and confused with complex music, especially when compared to my Orbe, which is relaxed and organic and organized and downright serene in comparison. But play something simpler, some John Wesley Harding or even Rubber Soul, and the P2 has the goods. I stand by the US$500 Rule. If you’re an analog novice, the P2 will get you where you want to go better than a Project Debut, better than a Music Hall MMF 2.1, and better than a Technics SL-1200.

Of course, you could have a Rega P3, for just a little more…

Marc Phillips has been writing about hi-fi and music under the Vinyl Anachronist banner since 1998. His earlier columns can be found on the Perfect Sound Forever website. You can discuss vinyl with Marc at Vinylanach@aol.com