Is it me? Comments on the Rega Mira integrated.

My daughter has a Rega Luna in her bedroom system which is essentially the same circuit as a Mira. It is a decent integrated even for a solid state. The soundstaging is good, detail is much better than most SS amps in the range, it leans toward warm -the Rega sound. I found the highs to be clean but not extended and the bass reasonably tight driving PSB Alphas. It replaced a Cambridge Audio integrated which sounded very unrefined by comparison.

It must be you. Just kidding. Perhaps it is not a good match for your speakers (which you did not mention) magnifying some of their weaknesses with its own. I can see that this amp might be a bit tubby with already warm leaning speakers.

For what its worth.....

I would have to say my experience with the Rega Mira has been the opposite: very clean, open, smooth, non-gritty non-transistor sounding integrated. I am very pleased with mine. Now it doesn't have the bass control of 5k and up amplifiers and extreme transparency soundstaging and openness of expensive tube gear but for $800-900 integrated it's pretty darn good, IMHO. Mine is running in a second system with following components: Rega Jupiter 2000, cables Cardas Golden Reference and Golden Cross, Ensemble Animatas, Rega Vulcan, filtering by Tice Solo HC. I have another system for home theatre using a Rega power amp, the Rega Maia, and that is a different story. I compared the Maia to my other more expensive power amps and comparitively found it to be a little constricted and closed in.

Dear Entrope: my speakers are Mordaunt-Short Pearl 20i monitors, bi-wired. I tried single-wiring the speakers last night and that tamed the bass quite a bit, but the soundstage still seems very constricted compared to my Marantz SS Special Edition which is quite airy. I think you may be right about the amp-speaker interaction -- just not a good pairing. I like my Marantz but was hoping to find something with similar sound but more detail.

I think the Rega Brio is the best kept secret in hifi. The phono stage alone, which is a built-in card, is worth the price of the piece.