Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

I’m UK-based, and coming to this thread very late in the day, but can say “You are not alone.” inasmuch as I’ve experienced most of the reported issues with my own Saturn.

Today I’ve had it tell me that a disc was empty when it clearly wasn’t. After this I hit play on another disc and it showed me the “play” symbol but the clock stayed at 00.00 and I had to hit stop and play again in order to get the disc to start.

I’ve experienced the “unstoppable machine” syndrome and I’ve also experienced the loss of the first second or so of many tracks when selected directly. The only way to get past this issue is to use the silent rewind and stop the rewind just before the end of the previous track.

Also, the player almost consistently ignores the first play command from the remote. Instead, it responds only to the fourth or fifth pressing of the button. And that’s allowing for the fact that the remote must be pointed directly at the CDP for it to notice your commands at all.

Getting it out of programme mode when I’ve accidentally chosen the wrong track can also be quite an adventure.

All in all it has gotten me down a lot over the nearly three years that I’ve owned it.

My first Rega CDP was an early Apollo, and this exhibited a loud transformer hum along with many of the other problems listed above. Instead of a direct warranty replacement I opted to upgrade to the Saturn after being tempted by my hi fi dealer’s description of it as a “stonker”. A side by side audition demonstrated that the Saturn was indeed the “better” player and so extra cash was handed over, resulting in the rather chunkier Saturn taking its current place in my hi fi rack.

(I’ve put “better” in quotes because I suspect that it was only emotionally better on selected vocal tracks and that the rest of “better” was based upon an analysis of things like detail resolution, speed and punch. All of these things have value, but aren’t perhaps as important as musicality and general emotional involvement.)

I reported my problems to my dealer, but this got me nowhere. I never reported the problems to Rega, however, because time never really allowed.

Being a bit of a sentimentalist, I also never got rid of my old Rotel RCD 965 BX LE Discrete (try saying that after a drink or two) CD player. This has been handy when entertaining since waiting 12 seconds for a CD to load and then another similar length of time for the player to notice that you want it to play the CD and then to get to the right track and actually play something can destroy the musical flow when I’m in DJ mode. Moreover, some tracks actually still sound better on the Rotel inasmuch as the emotion and musicality is there, even if some of the clarity and detail is missing.

The Saturn is great on modern vocal recordings, bringing out the loneliness and isolation in Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets Of Philadelphia” and also in Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”. However, put on old mono recordings such as Frank Sinatra’s “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning” or Brenda Holloway’s “Every Little Bit Hurts” and the Rotel beats it hands down.

All in all, I probably agree with Philjul on Audioreview.com when he said

“Overall this is a very decent machine but after two years of listening to it I have come to the conclusion that it is not as musical as the previous Rega Planet I owned which was less than half the price. The Saturn certainly has many qualities and "objective" improvements over the Planet (I never listened or owned the Jupiter so I cannot compare it to that one). It has a much deeper soundstage, wider frequency with much better top and bottom end, and a cleaner treble. It is also much more adept at playing classical music as it is more detailed and possesses much better dynamics. Despite all this, it fails to take hold of me in a way that the more humble Planet did.”

Perhaps the Apollo would have been a better compromise in this respect, costing less than half as much but having a slightly warmer feel. With less money spent, however, I might have replaced it by now with a player that also played what I wanted it to play when I wanted it to be played.

So, my longer term aim is for a player that offers a different balance of emotion versus analysis – just like my old Rotel still does after 15 years – but better than the Rotel, and that also works properly.

Any suggestions?

I was able to fix my apollo. The problem is due to a sticky laser transport. I noticed any time I would get the "no-disc" error, that I could not hear the laser move. In fact, I noticed it would always be in the same position.

I was able to gently (with force) move the laser assembly all the way out and then back to the inner position. This cured the problem for about 30 mins, until it started dropping audio and then would not read the cds again.

I then lubed all the gears and track with very light machine oil. Haven't had a problem since.

For what it's worth, I owned a Saturn for a few months last year (purchased brand new) and had the same issues as Fillmoor. Namely, the player not responding properly to remote control commands to change song (it would go to the wrong song), and also cutting out the first second or so of pretty much every track that I skipped to. If I hit stop then it seemed to right itself more or less, and unplugging the unit would right it entirely (for a little while). Not major problems, but annoying all the same. I traded the Saturn in for another player, but it was so that I could get the matching player for my amp (not because of the issues I had).

I'm considering the purchase of an Apollo now (yes I switch gear too much - I'm still trying to figure out what I want from my system). I'd buy Rega again if I determined it was the best player for my current set up, but as of this moment I'm considering various options. I'm not too worried about the glitches as I'm confident I'd have the support of my dealer, but of course it's a tick against Rega when comparing with other brands. They may just be glitches today, but what'll they be five years from now?

Well, I bought an Apollo, 35th Anniversary SE (couldn't resist when I found out my dealer had a couple still left), and it failed the first day I had it! I played one song, hit STOP, and it wouldn't. Opened the lid, it kept playing. When the disc finally stopped, the Apollo had trouble recognizing when the door was opened or closed, and it wouldn't initialize discs (and by extension does not play anymore - the disc doesn't even spin). It's currently in for repair.

I'll tell you this though - it sounded amazing for that half hour it worked. It seemed to really have synergy with my Audiolab 8000S and Quad 12L2 speakers. I can't wait to get it back, but whether I keep it long-term or not I don't know. It's going to have to play reliably over the next couple of years.

I agree with Cableplex, as I had the same problem on my Apollo with long disc read times, audio dropouts and No Disc read errors, until it failed to function entirely. I applied a light coat of sewing machine oil to the laser tracks utilizing a q-tip and it now reads discs as quickly as it did on day one, and no more dropouts. I was able to move the laser head by rotating the exposed gear. When I get some time, I plan to figure out how to remove the cover so I can apply a drop of oil to each gear bearing as well.