Upgrades for Rega P3. Worth it?


Good afternoon, all. Have been considering various upgrades to my Rega P3 and wondering if anyone could share their own experiences with this. In particular, looking for real advice on whether certain upgrades were worthwhile and/or had an observable benefit to sound quality to people who've done them.

I currently have a P3 with an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge, Clearaudio counterweight, and Pro-ject Tube Box SE II phono stage. Potential upgrades I have considered:
Rega TT PSU power supply,
Groovetracer (or other) subplatter,
Groovetracer (or other) acrylic platter (vs. stock glass),
Phono cartridge replacement

Are any of these really worth doing?
nichomoff
Also kind of wondering what kind of impact the turntable mat has on overall performance. For example, if the mat itself is not perfectly flat, does that simply negate the benefits of a more precisely-machined subplatter?
The biggest bang I got for my P3 was the GT subplatter, GT Delrin platter, and the Michael Lim motor isolation base. And of course, the 24v motor upgrade.
I tweaked the heck out of my old rega planar II, to the point it's not recognizable anymore.

Sure, it performs very well, but I could have spent less on a new turntable.

It was a learning experience and all the tweeks provided better sound, but I could have gotten there much quicker with one single purchase.

Benefit of tweaking - you can do it at your pace

tweaks include...
•SRM/TECH Deluxe Acrylic Platter
•RB250 arm
•Cardas monolithic rewire kit
•Michell Technoweight
•ISOsub GT 2 S UPGRADE SUB PLATTER
•Rega II Motor Upgrade kit
•Audiomods Arm (latest addition)

Hi-fi is a long haul :-)
Nickomoff - If you are using a weight or clamp to secure the album then any slight deformity in the mat (like felt) would probably be eliminated, but the mat may still effect the overall sound.

With the upgrades I have purchased, I found that eliminating all mats provides the best sound - the old plastic Rega sub-platter was dull and listless compared to the ISOsub GT 2 upgraded sub-platter, especially when used with the SRM/TECH acrylic platter.

I found that using a mat reduced the ultra fine details in the recording venue acoustics and had a more confused image.

If you have the glass platter on the rega I would recommend an acrylic one - take your pick, there are many, or the GT Delrin platter that Doug has, reviews indicate they are extremely good

I found the glass platter, whilst great for consistent speed, seemed to present an image that was not very accurate when compared to my acrylic platter I now have and the bass was not as tight and detailed as it is now.

Strings also sounded quite shrill. Almost as though they were distorting.

I tried many things to fix this...
- gluing cork to the underside of the platter
>>> this helped a little with the bass and the shrillness
- a couple of different mats - felt and Mission(sorbothane)
>>> all matts seemed to take the pace out of the music and made it less dynamic.
- getting the acrylic platter was the one thing that worked

Hope this helps