Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

Steve, thanks for your response. I'd like to say that indeed you and Allen at Audiowaves provided superior customer service surrounding the issues I had with the new Rega cd players. I am well aware you do not make the machines, merely provide sales support and service and to that end I commend your excellence, and to Allen as well. I have suspected and posted that it is the new operating software for some time now. I would like to state I am not doug shroeder but had the same problems he did. I have used the machine in accordance with all operating instructions and do not have any unconventional lighting system in my house. With the Saturn I never even used the remote control. Here is what happened twice in last 2 months with my Saturn (and about 7 or 8 times total with my 2nd and 3rd Apollo machines). So I had the fault on 3 out of 4 machines. I pressed stop on the front panel button, it did not stop, I pressed stop again, and the disc kept playing. After a few more tries (my experience is if the first stop command does'nt work none of the following ones do). Since The machine still would not stop playing the disc, I opened the lid....the disc kept playing. The only way to get the machine to stop playing was to turn the power off. To me this was the most bothersome of the problems I experienced, but I also thought unreliable operation of the remote was an inconvenience as well as disc initialization failures. You may argue otherwise but I feel you should not have to turn the power off to change a disc on a 2600 dollar cd player. Taken alone each thing would maybe not be enough for me to jump ship, but all the issues taken together were enough for me to seek a cd player elsewhere. I asked Allen to see if there are any firmware updates for the machines (I thought of this because I heard Denon had provided firmware updates for some its DVD players). Allen told me no. At that point I decided to not send my Saturn for service, because I had 3 machines back and then get the same old problems again. I really dont know how you would explain that Doug Shroeder and myself had a total of 9 or 10 machines and none operated correctly. Are you saying our sample is part of only 5% error rate? As Doug says this seems highly improbable. Additionally if you read this thread there are other posters besides that have issues with the new Rega machines. How many Saturn/Apollo users post on forums? I dont know. In retrospect I should have hung onto my Jupiter machine.

Steve, thank you for responding; it shows Rega is paying attention. I would like to once again state that the Sound Organization and my Rega dealer have worked very hard to resolve the issue. What other company would swap out five units in such a manner?

Having said that, it is continuously suggested to the public that the problem may be the user, "During the "Initialization" process if the remote is pressed urging the unit to play it will still accept these commands and this over time can cause the player to misread."

Let it be known that there is absolutely NO user issue involved in the problems I have had with the Apollo/Saturn units. Owners become aware rather quickly that one cannot issue the player commands during the initialization process. This was never an issue which I discussed as a problem. In fact, I went online to distinctly differentiate and clarify that the problems with the players are NOT related to commands being given during initialization process. This is a misperception on Rega's part, and I would like to have it cleared up. That reasoning is wrong and is to be discounted as a cause for the malfunctions.

It is not true to state that the units never malfunctioned at the dealer. My first Apollo I took in to have checked. While giving it commands (this is classic!) and the dealer stepped out of the room it malfunctioned, and we were unable to get it to do so again. I note that he exchanged the unit for me anyway. The next unit also exhibited similar problems in my listening room.

On one other occasion a different player (I believe it was this second unit), again brought back to the dealer, had one misread, which the dealer and I both saw, but it was explained along the lines of, "All players have occasional hiccups..." Again, we were not able to get it to malfunction a second time. I beleive I brought up the possibility that the unit was susceptible to IR interference, and that was happening in my HT. At the time I was willing to accept that logic, but not anymore.

I disagree with the suggested fix, "Unplugging the unit and leaving overnight to fully reset in 99% of the cases that customers have called upon gets the machine back up to full reading capability."

In none of these units did this work. I always turn off my cdp after use, without fail. Only when burning them in do I run them constantly. Every unit was turned on/off daily. If so, the problem should have resolved itself. When the unit did misread/glitch I did try turning the unit off and letting it sit for several minutes. This never fixed the problem. The problems I am discussing are not effected by letting the unit sit overnight. Neither turning the unit off/on, nor powering it off for the day resolved the operational issues. Further, why should a player have to sit overnight to be "fixed"?

The issue is NOT explainable by user error, nor does it disappear when the units are left to sit. The problems with the units are intermittent and random. This makes it tremendously difficult to isolate and fix the problem.

In my working with Steve during the interview, and my dealer I have found them to be considerate and well intentioned men. I have no greivance against them, but I cannot explain the situation any other way. I certainly am not the only one who's had problems. If no one else comes forth with players having issues, then I'm left to consider the possibility that freakishly unlikely odds aligned to have me work with five defective players out of an overwhelming majority of perfect ones in a 1.5 year period. I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that.

Let's say over a 1.5 year period Rega sold 1,000 units and of them 3% exhibited problems - 30 units. Over 1.5 years, of all the persons receiving units, I get five of them? Statistically, it is not likely. More likely that additional problematic units exist and are not discovered, reported or returned.

I do agree that Rega will work owners until they are satisfied. My experience has confirmed that Rega goes to great lengths to make their customers happy. I do not know of any instance in which a purchaser has not had their dealer exchange a defective player for a new one.

I postulate that the percentage of defective machines is greater than 5% for the following reasons: a) about 40 percent of problems in general simply go unreported (like crimes for example) b) defects are primarily manifested only by users who don't play entire discs, but would appear if remote track access or stop functions were used more frequently c) the number of Apollo/Saturn owners who post on forums is small indeed relative to the number of machines sold- which is in the tens of thousands. This is further borne out by the fact that I had absolute zero problems with my Jupiter and had lots of them with the Saturns and Apollos- this is backed up by a poster above who kept his Planet since it operated more reliably than the Apollo, which he sold.

Wkass, I think the response offered by djohnson59 is probably the reason why slightly but not seriously scratched cd's drop out or skip on the new Rega machines. In addition to controlling laser focus and accuracy, Regas new operating system sets one of 3 levels of error correction for a disc. What criteria it uses to choose a particular level I don't know, but apparently there are cases where it is inadequete. By contrast other cd machines (including Regas own previous players) use a relatively higher rate of error correction at all times, and hence the discs are playable on those machines. When the machine chooses the lower level of error correction it may also open up the possibility of skipping from speaker vibrations (such as when a disc is played loud) as suggested in the post by the Rega dealer who refers to it as acoustic feedback, which is related to a pick up device (phono cartridge or microphone) feeding back information to the speaker creating a feedback loop. A cd player can not be in a feedback loop, it just skips from the speakers vibrations. I have a concrete floor and my discs are in excellent shape so I never experienced either of these things with my Apollo's or Saturn. Maybe the Apollo tests well for error correction because it chooses the highest correction level for the Pierre Verany test disc.

Fillmoor,
I should not have to spend $2600 on a player just to have these sorts of operational issues or poor user experience based on the condition of my CD collection, when the Jolidas, Arcams, and Cambridge's of the world do not.

I think the Apollo and Saturn owners out there, who have never experienced this, should feel very fortunate. But I am not willing to take that chance with my money.

I will probably now take a look at Arcam CD-36, Cambridge 840C, Simaudio Equinox, or Ayre CX7e for my CD upgrade.

Thanks to all who responded. Your responses were all very helpful.