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REGA - APHETA MC PHONO CARTRIDGE

The Apheta MC Cartridge is a true labor of love for Roy Gandy and Rega. They have worked on this design for over five years and this product is completely manufactured by hand and all done in-house. The body is a solid alloy with a transparent, acrylic housing. The stylus is a Rega Vital Profile; a nude elliptical stylus on a tapered aluminum cantilever. Those of you who are familiar with Rega’s turntable and tonearm designs are in for a real treat. This cartridge is a pure music maker! While it’s not the most detailed or the most resolving, what the Rega does better than other sub-$2000 MCs is to keep you up all night pulling record after record off your racks. Rega, like many of our customers, values musicality and natural tonality over a sterile, hyper-detailed presentation. Like Rega’s well-respected other products, the Apheta proves to be one of the most musical and enjoyable sounding cartridges they have ever built.

“…listening with the Apheta is an utterly seductive experience. Forget the foxy measurements – just dig the sound and the music delivered by the most interesting new cartridge I’ve heard in years!”
- Paul Messenger, HiFi+, Issue 47

Great Designs Since the Early 80’s
Rega entered the cartridge market in the early 80’s and now has four moving magnet designs and one moving coil. All cartridges are handmade by Rega, utilizing custom coil winding techniques and high precision bodies.

Moving Coil Cartridge - Apheta at Last
Talking with Roy Gandy a few weeks ago I asked just how good was the Apheta moving coil cartridge? For those of you that know Roy you will appreciate that he has never been one to boast, the man tells it like it is. So, in Roy’s humble opinion he feels that the Apheta is -- one of the best if not the best product Rega has ever made!The Rega Apheta contains neither a tie wire nor a foam damper. The use of new magnetic materials and engineering techniques has allowed Rega to design a completely new generator system making the Apheta totally unique and our most innovative cartridge to date.
Moving Magnet Cartridge Range

5 to 0 Joints
The Rega cartridge is a one-piece molding made of Pocan, a polymer with hardness greater than industrial aluminum. Most cartridges lose high frequency energy by the movements generated from the many joints created in conventional manufacturing. Most cartridges have five or six joints between the stylus mounting and the cartridge/head shell. Rega cartridges have none!

Now That’s Tolerance
Routinely, most other cartridges must allow for large tolerances when manufacturing with a reasonable gap of 0.7mm between the moving magnet and the pole pieces. This gap on Rega cartridges is only 0.25mm.

Rega engineering results in more precision and more music!
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When Rega was asked to produce a MC cartridge they decided to analyse existing designs on the market. They were astonished to discover that 99% of the products followed the same design principles established almost 50 years ago when materials and manufacturing processes were far less advanced than today.

Conventional MC cartridges utilize a steel suspension system (tie wire) which creates a high amplitude H.F resonance (normally around 8-12Khz). Such resonance is unacceptable and is usually damped by a rudimentary piece of foam rubber. However the foam rubber deteriorates with age and cannot prevent the complete structure from vibrating and 'ringing'.

The specifics and adjustment of the tie wire and damping determine whether the cartridge is under damped (bright) or over damped (warm and bass heavy). A happy medium is rarely achieved.

This encouraged Rega to pursue a new direction inspired by modern materials and the basic laws of magnetism. The Rega Apheta contains neither a tie wire nor a foam damper. After 4 years and many hundreds of experiments the innovative design of the Apheta was complete.

Specifications:

Tracking pressure 1.75g
Input load impedance: 100 Ohms
Output impedance: 15 Ohms
Output voltage: 500uV