We first spotted these Rega Kyte speakers at the Bristol HiFi Show 2020 (remember when in-person shows were a thing?) when they were first demoed as part of the Rega System One all-in-one vinyl solution over a year ago. Now, they are official and on sale.
Priced at £499 a pair (about AU$999), the Rega Kyte are two-way bookshelf speakers built and designed in-house in the UK – even the cabinets are moulded here – and are an update, in name at least, to a classic Rega model of old.
Rather than using traditional wood-veneered cabinets, though, the new Kyte adopt a phenolic resin cabinet that the company lauds for having a natural stiffness (further enhanced with ceramic plates and a cross brace structure). To make this happen, Rega has worked with another British company and invested in injection moulding of stiff thermoset phenolic resin. The result is a "unique cabinet construction" that has supposedly been made for one third of the price of other British made quality loudspeakers. Rega says the increasing use of non-wood cabinet materials in the speaker industry has allowed it to achieve "a long term dream".
Inside the bass-reflex ported cabinets are Rega's own ZRR tweeter and its handmade MX-125 bass/mid driver, incorporating a four-layer voice coil. A different kettle of fish to the company's existing RX speaker line-up, the Kyte look to be desktop-friendly, too: they're pretty compact (32.5 x 18.8 x 23.2cm) and supplied with an optional foot for each speaker to allow for positioning flexibility.
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