Rega NAIAD

Rega NAIAD - Turntable unlike any other
After seven years in research and development, the project known as Naiad finally completed in 2017. A product unlike any other, created to push Rega’s philosophies to the extreme and prove beyond doubt that our lifelong mantra of ultra-lightweight, high rigidity plinths and the use of key materials in key areas are paramount in constructing any serious performance turntable.

The Life of Naiad
Although our experience gave us reasonable confidence we needed a trigger to justify substantial financial investments in the new tooling, materials and design concepts for a whole new five-model range of turntables; A main development philosophy Rega always followed was “only change one thing at a time”. However, a well-designed turntable is a good balance of compromises and an improvement in one part can often need other improvements to justify the change. In addition, Rega has always obsessively considered value for the end-user and takes pride in an efficient, well run, cost-conscious approach.
So it took a huge emotional, financial and practical change to decide to build a “test bed” turntable that incorporated all our experience, theories, research technology and philosophies regardless of cost. The timing was fortunate. The UK was in a mini manufacturing slump and normally busy high-end technology companies were happy to donate some research time. Specifically, a ceramics engineering company produced an “impossible” one-piece aluminium oxide main bearing bush.
Not content with achieving the impossible they then produced the same part in Diamond hard zirconium dioxide and gave us samples with bearing clearances in one-micron steps so we could assess the management of synthetic oil films.
A leading engineering company specialising in carbon fibre composites for the Ministry of Defence and Formula 1 industries just happened to employ an engineer who was a young vinyl fanatic. As a competent mechanical engineer, he immediately understood our concepts of low mass, stiffness and minimal internal stress and had a significant impact on our design of a stress-free carbon/ceramic composite plinth.
Rega discarded all the established concepts of high mass, air bearings, magnet bearings and eye candy look on the basis that they were scientifically incoherent when dealing with microscopic vibration measurement. Instead, we pushed the boundaries of stiffness and low mass, micron-level accuracy, no stress and spreading resonances, eliminating all thoughts of a commercial product and value. This was to be a one-off testbed exploration of ideas.

KEY FEATURES
- Ultra-lightweight carbon fibre plinth with Rohacell foam core and ceramic braces
- RB Titanium tonearm
- Aphelion 2 MC cartridge
- Advanced power supply housed in our reference electronics casework
- Automatic calibration for speed and inbuilt test facility
- New ceramic flywheel effect platter
- Zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA) spindle and bearing assembly
- Precision machined aluminium hub
- Custom made carbon fibre cantilever designed wall bracket to provide the ultimate support