Rega Apollo and CD-R problems.

No problems for me so far - sounds better than the Arcam CD73 it replaced too

The Apollo's owner's manual clearly states that any CD-Rs recorded at greater than 8x are not guaranteed to play, as the player may not be able to read it.

It's in the owner's manual. Maybe that's why some people are having problems with the Apollo reading their CD-Rs?

I am having endless problems with mine. Very disappointing. I have taken it back just inside warranty and they fixed it and it has deteriorated again to the point where it cannot play a disc.

I was told this was a brilliant CD player.
I paid 2 grand for it. And I loved it at first.

Here is what I have experienced.
Press play, nothing happens.
open lid, put in another disc.
Initialising... for ever.
No disc. ... all my discs are perfect, I never scratch them, I do not loan them.
Blank disc!
Put disc in again.
Open lid start again.
Put in another CD that I didn't want to listen to - plays.

Hardware lockup - no response to play, stop, skip.
Stopping halfway through track one.
Noisy! - you can here the sled motors from 5m away.
Not able to play the end of a 72minute CD.
Terrible remote.
Terrible track programming interface.
Poor quality terminals that look like they were $2 from Radio Shack.

10-16-12: Atarashiihikari
I paid 2 grand for it.

Two thousand? two thousand what? Because it only ever retailed for right at $1,000US.
The loaner I got from my dealer had a lot of issues just like you describe. I have had mine for a year now and have never had an issue, aside from the occasional (1x/month maybe) no disc, or sometimes it won't stop when I hit stop. I turn off, unplug for 5 minutes, and plays fine.
I assume youve tried that?

This was a common problem of the Rega CD players back then. I went thru 2 Apollos, and 1 Saturn player that all developed the same problems.