Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

Hmmm, glad checked back in on this thread. I had let it slip from my mind (all too easy these days). I have not experienced most of the problems noted above but I do tend to mostly listen to entire discs. I have not yet had a disc that refused to stop playing. However, I have occasionally had initialization problems and, now that you mention it, I've had problems skipping to the correct track (from the remote). This happened just yesterday. My recollection is that this mostly happened with CD-Rs and I had just chalked it up to the vagaries of cheap media, etc. although I am careful with my burns and always use 8x (my CD-RW won't burn any slower).

Doug is correct, you definitely learn quickly to leave the player alone until the "Initialising" (for our UK friends) finishes. Steve's information on unplugging the player is interesting. As someone who works with computers, it is feasible that, since there may be current running through the player even when switched "off", it might accumulate and eventually be confused by those premature commands. Since I unplug my equipment when thunderstorms come through, I may have inadvertently avoided some of the problems. I do think they need to be fixed if there are problems. I also wonder what that fix would entail. I'm not sure that the firmware is flashable and the chip is probably soldered to the board although I confess that I don't know for sure on either of these issues.

I will say that my Apollo is one FINE-sounding CD player. Although I have not had dozens of players in my system, I never really understood what PRAT was until I found my foot tapping with the music while listening to it.

I hope we haven't scared Steve away from this thread as he would no doubt provide valuable insight, and possibly a conduit for communication, with Rega.

Dick

Dick, so you thought you had a perfect unit as of about 3 weeks ago when you posted? Using the commands more (as opposed to simply putting on a disc and playing it through) exposed the issues with your player?

Because the problems are intermittent it's easy to think that either it was some anomaly which cannot happen again, or that you did something wrong with the input. But, when it happens enough times over the course of days or weeks the realization comes that there IS a problem with the player.

Doug,

I suppose you could say that. It also helps when you see others are having the same issues. As I said, my recollection is that it happens with CD-Rs and it's easy to believe that the problem lies with the discs and not my $1,000 CD player. Additionally, I dismissed it as a problem *for me* since I really don't play CD-Rs that much. Sort of like it's nice to know that I can play mp3s but I almost NEVER do that. If there are issues with mp3s I would never have encountered them.

Now that I've seen the problems others are having, I'll pay more attention to the exact circumstances and report back if I come up with anything. I'll also be following these threads more closely from now on to see if we get any resolution. Given the number of units Rega has sold, unless this is a field updatable issue I doubt we'll see any resolution.

Dick

Dick, thanks for checking back and posting. The problems are usually occaisional and intermiitent, and hence why Rega says they are unable to duplicate them, so to them there are no problems. Any serviced or replacement machine will eventually exhibit the exact same issues. I'm convinced that they are caused by bugs in the operating software/chipset of Regas new operating system. In my opinion, To really address the issues would require an entire rewrite of the operating software, something they will not invest in presently, I'd say the jury is out on these machines. Apparently it is'nt so easy to replicate the Phillips/Sony "redbook" system which was many, many years in the making (I know because a friend of mines dad used to work for Phillips).

Fillmore, yes that's what I have experienced but I don't remember having a problem with normal CDs. I only have one hybrid SACD at this point but it seems fine as well. Not being able to see the code that went into the operating system, it's impossible to say whether an entire rewrite would be necessary or just some tweaking of the code. To my mind, a more important issue is how they would update the enormous number of machines they have sold in the past 2-3 years. If they didn't have the foresight to use a flashable chip on the logic board (or at least a pluggable chip), updating would be way too expensive a proposition if the problems were acknowledged as bugs. Some computer companies have slipped bug fixes in with feature updates to their programs. That way they don't have to admit to the bugs and don't have to notify all their customers even if the patch is user-installable. They figure that most users will eventually install the patch and the bug fix as well and they're not out the expense of all those notifications. But again, this presumes that the user CAN install the patch.