Pursue Ultimate Precision: Reference Rega RB Titanium Tonearm Operates with Near-Frictionless Horizontal and Vertical Movement, Helps Retrieve Profound Amounts of Information and Detail on LPs

Switch to RB Titanium — the most advanced, accurate, and sophisticated production tonearm Rega has manufactured in its five-decade-plus history — and hear a profound depth of musical information that is obscured by designs with exponentially less tracking, control, and parts-matching than this reference-setting instrument. Devised to have the minimum of mechanical joints and utilize the stiffest materials in all critical areas, it was originally only available on the Rega Naia turntable. 

Able to operate with near-frictionless horizontal and vertical movement while having no measurable free play in its bearing assemblies, the hand-made RB Titanium leverages the strengths of a one-piece titanium vertical bearing housing and titanium vertical spindle assembly. Completed with a Tungsten balance weight shaft and balance weight, the 236.5mm-long RB Titanium personifies custom engineering and manufacture. 

Each set of high-grade bearings are hand-selected to ensure an interference fit with the paired spindle matching both the inside and outside diameters. This approach increases the amount of detail that can be retrieved from LPs — while simultaneously maximizing the potential of your tonearm and cartridge. A hand-polished low-mass aluminum tube, low-capacitance phono lead, and Neutrik Profi professional RCA connectors round out a tonearm whose simple-sounding goal — ultimate precision — manifests with every LP you'll play. 

For more information on RB Titanium, which is backed by a lifetime manufacturer warranty, contact a Music Direct audio consultant at 312-433-0200. 

Why Zero-Play Bearings Matter
One unique characteristic of RB Titanium is the achievement of near-frictionless movement while having no measurable free play in its bearing assemblies. Why has Rega spent more than 30 years and invested so heavily in this area of tonearm design? Look at a stereo vinyl LP under an electron microscope and you will see microscopic ridges and bumps that the cartridge's stylus tracks and reads. The length of a ridge depends on its frequency. The height is its amplitude. Towards the center of an LP, a 10KHz signal is just 26 microns long. If it’s very quiet, it may be less than 10 microns high. If your tonearm has 10 microns of movement within the bearing assemblies (and even very expensive tonearms usually have much more play and movement), reading the bumps will be difficult. Musical vibration will be lost in arm movement. Due to the random nature of pivot or bearing movement, it is impossible to quantify exactly the musical distortion or loss of measured information. However, it is easy to see that accurate measurement or tracking of a 10-micron bump is not possible if the tracking stylus can move randomly at least the same distance that it is trying to measure.