Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

Fillmoor's comments regarding the Saturn match mine exactly. I typically play a disc from beginning to end without any skipping back and forth, which probably translates to one initialization error in 15-20 discs. Opening the top, rotating the disc a bit and closing usually works; only twice have I needed to turn the machine on/off to reset the process. I'm glad that Fillmoor explained what I have been suspecting, which halps me try to overlook the odd annoyance and just listen to the music.

This is in response to Fillmoor.

I did not mention that my problem was CD skipping. It was audio drop-outs. There is a difference. The audio on the player seems to drop out from time to time, as it is playing a CD.

The fact that I experienced this problem with both the Apollo and Saturn, with the same CDs, and not on my Jolida CD player, leads me to believe there is some sort of design glitch with the Rega players. Maybe the Apollo and Saturn at my dealer do not have the latest firmware. I will ask my dealer to contact Rega to see if other customers have complained of this.

Wkass:

Occasionally, My Saturn does drop out the audio. It may occur intermittently several times and either correct itself or drop out altogether. Although rarely, this has occurred on discs which had minor a minor scratch, and also on discs which needed a cleaning. The scratched discs could not be fixed, but cleaning the others corrected the problem. NOTE: The discs (evidently) in need of a cleaning had been cleaned two months prior and did not appear to be dirty at the time of the audio drop-out.

My bottom line: The Saturn is a bit finicky at times, but the musical delivery is fine enough to induce me to overlook the occasional glitch. Hope this helps.

Sorry to misinterpret your post. I have'nt had any problems with drop outs, only sporadic intermittent operational issues. I did ask my dealer about a firmware update and he said there is none. The way he and Rega tell it me and doug Shroeder are among the only people that have experienced problems with the new Rega machines. As I said in my post users who play entire discs may not experience the operational issues, since they are primarily related to track access and stop commands, and failure to initialize- you are the first I have heard of to experience audio drop outs. I dont know if others owners have had that issue I seem to remember alot of strange things with the early Apollos. My first Apollo gave occaisional static on one channel along with the operational issues. Every machine after that was fine audio output wise, but they all had occaisional failure to initialize, failure to stop and errors accessing track- when going from say number 3 to 8, you migh get 10 instead. My experience mirrors doug shroeders exactly. There is a recent review of the Saturn in a UK magazine that said the machine failed to initialize a hybrid disc, which the reviewer found curious. My own opinion is Rega needs to make some official acknowledgement and offer genuine rectification of these issues. Or apparently they think it is no big deal to have to turn the power off to change a disc on a 2600 dollar cd player, funny I dont have to do that on my 10 year old $90 panasonic discman. True the issues are infrequent and intermiittent, but really I expect more at that price level and from a company that supposedly prides itself on producing reliable products. Anybody thinking about buying a Satrun or Apollo should merely consider this in their purchase, given that there seem to be owners who report no issues at all. Could it be that me and doug shroeder just have incredibly bad luck? I'm actually selling my saturn for a number of reasons and told my buyer the issues these machines have. He said he usually plays whole discs so that eliminates most of them. My Saturn never gave an audio drop out.

Fillmoor,
Thanks for your clarification.

Doug,
Do you know how I can access your review? I tried going to the Dagogo website to read your review, but I could not find it in the Archives section.

Thanks,
Will