Rega System One

Fuss-free and a glorious listen, Rega’s System One is the new entry-level vinyl system to beat

Hi-fi system | ₹1,25,000

Although Aristotle is widely thought to have introduced the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts (an idea adopted in the 20th century by the Gestalt school of psychology), it is perhaps most poignantly explained in the 2010 movie Flipped, based on Wendelin Van Draanen’s 2001 novel of the same name.

When Richard Baker utters “A painting is more than the sum of its parts. A cow by itself is just a cow, a meadow by itself is just grass, flowers… and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but you put them all together… and it can be magic,” he could easily be talking about music, dance, opera or the human experience. And so it is with hi-fi– your system is so much more than a collection of cold, inanimate separates.

A complete proposition The three-product vinyl set-up under our noses here is the entry-level Rega System One. The question is, when you add two 2021 Award winners – namely Rega’s excellent Planar 1 turntable and integrated io amp – to an untested set of Rega speakers (and save some money on the price of buying them separately), are we witnessing the completion of a masterpiece, or an unfortunate late smear on the canvas?

Rega unveiled its System One at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show back in February 2020 (when life was so very different). At that time, the firm’s new Kyte speakers came with a suggested asking price of ₹65,000 if bought on their own.