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Goldring 1042 or Rega Exact

I currently own a Rega Planar 3 turntable with a Rega Elys cartridge. It sounds okay, but my digital front end (CAL Delta transport and Musical Fidelity A324) kills it. I am thinking of changing the cartridge, and have pretty much narrowed it down to the Goldring 1042 or Rega Exact. I am leaning towards the Exact for obvious reasons (i.e., Rega, Rega) but have read good things about the 1042. Feedback from any 1042 or Exact owners is appreciated.

As a side question, I am thinking of purchasing one of these two cartridges from Hong Kong suppliers here on Audiogon. Their feedback is extremely positive. Has anybody had a bad experience with purchasing over seas that I should know about?

Thanks in advance for your input, and Happy Thanksgiving.
mmowry
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Hi!

I own a G1042 & use it on my Origin Live Silver 250. It is an excellent cartridge that is very well suited to ALL REGA arms. I'm sure that you know that the OL Silver 250 is a major modification to the Rega 250 tonearm??
I'm sure that the Rega Exact is also a very fine match for your Rega tonearm but I can confidently tell you that the G1042 is also an equally fine match.
Smooth highs, rich midrange & plenty of bass slam. Sounds great right out of the box. Gets much better after about 50 hrs of play time - the highs get more extended. It is my personal opinion that the G1042 is one of the finest MM cartridges out there. Very well priced too.

BTW, you didn't mention which tonearm you are using? I just *assumed* you have a Rega tonearm! I might be wrong, of course.
mmowry OP
23 posts
 
Bombaywalla - thanks for the response. I have a Rega RB300 tonearm on my Planar 3. My Planar 3 is stock and about four years old.
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Mmowry,

I'm pretty certain that the G1042 is a very good match for the RB300. Maybe others who also have experience w/ this cart. reading this thread can also chime in.
Another suggestion for research is to go over to AudioAsylum.com & search the vinyl asylum archives for G1042. Plenty of good stuff written on this cart. as it is very popular. Read the good & the bad on this as nothing is perfect. This MM does more rights than wrongs by a long shot in my books.
FWIW. IMHO.
psychicanimal
1,738 posts
 
Your weak link is the turntable. Don't waste your money on a new cartridge. The glass and particle board TT's are touted as *audiophile* decks but when matched to a good digital rig they don't stand a chance. Main reason is their unacceptable speed/rotational stability, with vibration being a close second. Hear it in the attack and decay of percussion instruments. In your digital rig the attack will be fast, tight, well located in space and the decay wil be linear. In your Rega the attack will sound slow, blurry and the decay will waver. Get a CD & LP copy of something like Santana and listen to what I'm telling you...
stefanl
296 posts
 
Psychicanimal,you are correct when you say the weak link is the turntable,but there are ways around this.Firstly check the speed with a downloadable strobe from Extreme Phono's site.Planar 3's are usually 1-2% fast.To correct this, 2 equal spliced... length's of electrical tape wound around the rim of the sub-platter to widen it, cures this.Mine works fine.Experiment with the number of layers,testing with the strobe,and trim it.As regards a cartridge,both those MM's do not have a high enough frequency response.The Sumiko Blue Point Special or Denon 103 is ideal in this price range,if you can get a step-up or phono stage for MC.The Ortofon X5-MC is High Output MC and can be used in the existing stage.The platter can be easily replaced with an acrylic one,either bought off the web or you can have it machined cheaper.This table can go up against a $10,000 digital front-end when set-up right.stefanl
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