Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

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.

I should point out that I did not really expect conversation with Rega's headquarters. It would be exceptional if they contacted one owner of a product with a malfunction. If their dealer is also stating that he has no issues with other buyers then they would likely conclude the problem is isolated. Over time the issue became more pronounced (i.e. multiple players) and manifested itself to include a wider population (people who have voiced concerns, but may not have yet contacted Rega's headquarters) than just me.

I did, however, expect that the issues with just produced players would die out after 1.5 years. I assume they would be more likely to take notice or make changes if larger numbers of customers with problematic players contact them. In a nutshell, Rega UK needs to hear from a lot more people about this if anything is to be done about it.

I'd like to add that those who have the machines currently and say they operate fine, you may be in for a suprise. My 3rd Apollo worked fine for 6 months before bugging out, and got worse as time went on. I am convinced that the problem is bugs in Regas new operating software. That Rega was unable to supply a properly working machine over a two year period and that Rega and distributers/dealers continue to say "your the only one" or "there's just a few" is a lie. I have owned 3 of their turntables, several of their cd players and one of their amplifiers. The whole experience with the new rega machines has led me to the decision that I personally will never buy another Rega product again.