Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

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

Will, et. al,

The original review, which discusses the glitches, is accessed under the Recent Reviews column on the left side, in the Sources section. My Preface, added this past week, is accessed from the review itself by clicking on the red lettered sentence. Here's the link:

http://www.dagogo.com/RegaSaturn.html

I have addressed this issue thoroughly in my review and preface, which I added recently.

But know this, I believe I was the first (if not the absolute first, among the first handfull) to post questions in regard to the operations of the Saturn on audiophile forums. I have also followed the issue closely the entire 1.5 year period. I have seen many posts in regards to individuals claiming problems with their players. If this were potentially a case where only myself and one other person were plagued I would not bother the audiophile community, nor suggest that Rega has a manufacturing/quality control problem.

What would be the odds that of all the Apollo and Saturn units produced I would receive five defective ones while no one else had issues? If you know anything about statistics, the chances are vanishingly small. Taken with the fact that I have seen several posts from individuals in the past 1.5 years claiming problems suggests to me that there is an issue not being addressed.

Is it possible that in every instance where faulty units are being used there is in that environment a remote control infra-red lighting system or similar IR interfering device? Statistics would again say that's not likely. The odds are strongly in favor of my conclusion.

Assuming that persons who play whole discs through would not be aware of these issues, there may be many more players out there with the glitches which are undetected. For those people it may never be an issue. But for people who skip tracks or stop the player to change it the problem manifested itself too regularly in different players to be ignored.

A $2400 player should NOT have such issues, which is why I posted the Preface to the review. I gave the benefit of the doubt initially; now I do not. I am convinced that the issue is not related to infra-red interference, but a defect in the units themselves. Whether that defect plagues the entire production and has not been detected by all, I cannot say. Some seem to have perfect players. However, the appearance of posts in regards to faulty units purchased only one month ago makes a person wonder if the issue has been resolved and these are older stock players, or if the problem persists in the manufacture of the players. Only Rega can properly address that question.

Doug,
My dealer told me I am not the only customer who has complained about the operation of these players.

So I definitely think your preface is on to something here. I do not think it is a coincidence that there seems to be several people experiencing operational glitches on these units.

I'm debating whether I should bring up the issue with Rega, since I have not purchased one yet. And based on my recent user experience, I am hesitant to invest money into one of these CD players and may just stick with my old reliable Jolida JD100.

What was Rega's response to you when you brought this to their attention? Have they acknowledged whether they have heard similar complaints in the field? Even if they have, I doubt they would openly divulge this information to the public, unless these issues were root caused and a verified fix in place, for fear of lost sales.

Will

Rega has been absolutely silent on this issue. I have not heard from the distributor, nor Rega UK about it. The dealer insists that I am the only one of his customers who has had any issues with the units. I believe this dealer is a man of integrity, and though the odds of that are smaller, I believe it could be true because the pool of customers is smaller for him than the overall sales population for the Apollo/Saturn. Nevertheless, I see too many reports of issues from online forums, private emails, and my own experience with the units to conclude it is just my having some "bad luck". I do not believe in luck; I do, however, accept probability. The probability in this situation indicates that there are larger issues with the production of these players.