Hey Ronnie, small world!! I know I am loving the sound of this amp more and more, due as well to some 'table/tonearm/cartridge rolling I was doing yesterday. I'd love it if you contacted him and got me some more info/opinions on this amp!! But, to get to the RS for now. My own RS-A1 has no ground scheme whatsoever that I can see, so no screw/stability problem. With my Denon DL-103"E" there is no hum whatsoever in spite of this, but with my moving-iron AKG P8ES there was indeed some hum. But a caveat: the RS-A1 is in the back corner, so the headshell travels directly over the motor, I don't know if there would be any hum in the other position.
Did I ever mention that I find the Rega RB-300 to be one of the Greatest Bargains in Audio History ;-)?!? Yesterday I had fun playing tonearm/cartridge swappies on my two 'tables (B75 Bogen-Lenco and Garrard 301 grease-bearing), and having recently acquired a new Rega RB-300 to replace the old one (which I traded mounted on my old Ode to the Denon for equipment a while back), I re-wired it with my usual recipe of Cardas internal wiring and Music Boys (I LOVE this recipe!!). Anyway, I had constructed a special armboard for this tonearm for the Garrard 301, and mounted the Ortofon Jubilee to it. What sound greeted my ears!! For years I used the Kiseki Blue on the RB-300 on my Lenco, and then my Kiseki Purpleheart, and never did the Rega let me down, sounding powerful, incredibly detailed and blindingly dynamic, and yet "honest", in the sense of tonally correct and with dynamics in their proper proportion (like the more-expensive JMW tonearms).
Again yesterday it freshly blew me away with Ortofon's current statement MC. Never have I heard Marianne Faithful's brilliant Broken English LP sound so perfect, so mesmerizing, so amazing, as if it were the product of careful and expensive recording, transference and vinyl!! But nope, just a garden-variety commercial LP available for a few bucks used. Didn't know it was THAT good sonically, run to the nearest store and get yourselves copies! Also never have I heard this LP on a Giant plinth, or with a cartridge of this stature. I heartily recommend the Rega for ALL idler-wheel drives (including, of course, the Garrards), there is definitely a synergy between it and idlers, almost as if, like the Koetsus, the Regas were designed on idlers :-). As I've written before, once I'm done playing with all these other tonearms, I'll likely end up with solely a Rega.
And speaking of incredible bargoons, a fellow audiophile was here yesterday, and clearly heard the supremacy of the Denon DL-103 at PRaT, timing, it being the only cartridge so far to generate the full power of the Kundalini Effect (which is not to say that there aren't perhaps some others out there that can achieve this). Mounted on the RS-A1, it has detail to rival the best, and a lack of hardness due to the RS-A1's swivelling headshell, which pretty well eliminates tracing error. The Denon DL-103 should be dissected and examined to see what makes it tick, and the lessons applied to all new MC designs, but no, it's too cheap, and so is not taken as seriously as it should be, it being assumed the more expensive materials of more expensive cartridges will address all issues (wrong). Of course, there are all sorts of flavours of Greatness, from the Grados' supreme gestalt, through the Ortofon's supreme evenness and balance (combining a large portion of the Denon's energy and PRaT with state of the art tonal perfection and detail), and so on, it's a complicated and fascinating old world, glad I have multiple 'tables and tonearms!! Vive la Vinyl Fun!!
