RADAR is a price search engine. We link to the original listing — we never sell direct. Transactions happen on the source site.
This is a buyer’s market for this category right now: at £193, the ask sits a little above the £180 median but still comfortably inside the middle of the market and well below the £232 75th percentile, so it reads as fair, not ambitious. It is not a bargain at the £127 25th percentile, but it’s close enough to the centre of the range that a clean unit would be easy to justify.
A Rega Fono is a well-liked, no-nonsense phono stage: quiet, musical, and a solid step up from built-in phono inputs, especially if you want better timing, drive, and a more open presentation from a moving-magnet setup. At this price, the upside is mainly getting a properly sorted, dependable box without paying premium money; if it includes the original PSU and has been well cared for, that strengthens the buy.
Independent perspective — not a price guarantee. Always verify condition, accessories and provenance before purchase.
Rega Research, founded in 1973 in Essex, England, by Roy Gandy and Tony Relph, emerged from Gandy's lifelong passion for vinyl playback. A Ford engineer and music enthusiast, Gandy built his first turntable, the Planet, in his spare time, blending the founders' surnames to create the Rega name. From humble beginnings in a derelict mill, the company quickly gained traction with early models like the Planar 2 and Planar 3, establishing its heritage as a British hi-fi pioneer dedicated to precision engineering and hand-assembly.
Rega specializes in turntables and tonearms, its cornerstone products, but has expanded into a full ecosystem including cartridges, integrated amplifiers like the Elicit and Brio, phono stages such as the Fono, and speakers like the Ela series. While early efforts included loudspeakers and electronics from the 1980s onward, the brand prioritizes vinyl-centric components over headphones, DACs, or cables, all designed in-house for musical fidelity using specialist materials and tight tolerances.
Rega holds a revered position in the high-end hi-fi market as a niche boutique icon, prized by audiophiles for affordable, lifetime-quality performance that emphasizes music over gimmicks. Globally exported to over 50 countries from its Essex facility employing more than 150, it remains a symbol of British ingenuity, with turntables like the Planar series securing enduring loyalty among vinyl revivalists.
See all Rega listings on RADAR.
