Any word from anyone on AudiogoN about the new Rega Apollo R CDP?

+1 on the Rega DAC. I also tried the Apollo and it's a good player. But the Rega DAC opens the soundstage and air around instruments, mated with the Mac Mini or an old Oppo DVD player. I might consider the Apollo R as a better transport, but I do think the Rega DAC offers much more, even if connected to a inexpensive transport.

Rob

@Baka 1969
I haven't heard the Rega Dac, but others have commented that the Dac sounds more open than the Apollo, and I can well believe it. The Apollo sound is neat and tidy, with good insight and pacing, but it isn't a big wide open sound. For a while I used the Apollo as a transport with my Digital Link III, and that worked well. Ultimately I replaced it with the NAD universal player because I could play DVD-A thru my Dac, and theNAD is less fussy than the Apollo about playing discs.

@richardfinegold

It's kind of ironic that the previous Apollo was more fussy about playing discs while the Apollo is supposed to buffer the music. Which begs the question on how well the Apollo or Apollo R are as a transport?

I was discussing DACs with a buddy of mine. He has the Wired For Sound (W4S) 2 DAC, but he also had the Cary Exciter DAC. He needed a balanced DAC so he made the switch. He has heard DACs in excess of $3,000 and he still believes the Exciter held strong against it and was better than most DAC sets that CD players under $3k have. He uses a Cambridge 650 player as a transport plus the W4S DAC. He also uses a music server that he runs into the W4S. He likes the server/W4S combo (which he though was equivalent to the Cary in SE mode) to the Cambridge player alone. That mirrors my experiences comparing my server combo with CD players under $1500.

My entire point of the thread is will the Apollo R alone be a better choice than my current front end? Is the previous Apollo, with the closeout deals, a better transport than my server? Will there be a new Saturn R with an asynchronous USB input that will be better than all of it?

You're asking questions that really can't be answered yet. I had no trouble with the Apollo and less than perfect discs. The new R Version is likely to have improvements, but it won't be a vast improvement as in digital we get very small changes/improvements at pretty much all price points.
I like the Apollo R. It stacks neatly with the Rega DAC and was certainly designed with that pairing in mind. We'll have to wait a bit to get more reviews, but only your ears really matter.
My guess is that buying a used Apollo is a safe bet. If the extra cost doesn't bother you then the new R is going to be a bit better (a guess). The Saturn costs less than that pairing, so can we assume that Rega finds it better than the Saturn?

I'm so thrilled with the Rega DAC and Mac Mini that I've fallen away from the hunt for CD transports for now.

Good luck,

Rob

People's mileage can vary, as apparently Robbob has had no trouble with his Apollo reading discs, but all that I can say is my experience was that the player is slow in starting (which I always attributed to it's buffering) and fussy with discs. It was an exasperating experience, because even after 30 seconds of silence, I couldn't be sure if that was the normal slow start or if it had rejected the disc altogether. It would frequently accept a disc if I reloaded it, but the opposite would happen as well, where it would refuse to play a disc that it had played without incident previously.
I like hassle free audio, as I am usually trying to unwind after a stress filled day, and that is my chief memory of the Apollo, getting frustrated and annoyed over these issues. Perhaps my machine was somewhat faulty and the experience is atypical, but a perusal of users forums at the time revealed that it was not an uncommon issue.