The CA was very nice but I now find myself sitting down for hours just listening to CDs ... I never did this with the CA ... I am liking this Apollo
It even got me to fine tune my speaker placement, including my REL Sub, which sounded a bit boomy, now a bit further out of the corner it blends nicely.
Art are you using a subwoofer? Didnt you try some RELs? I am thinking of upgrading the T1 for a r305, b2 or maybe a BK xls 200 or 400 ... just not sure the upgrade in sound will be worth the cost of a new sub.
I had a couple of REL's and they were pretty nice. I still maintain that the Era Design 10 was the best I used. I no longer use subs in 2 channel audio. I have a Hsu STF-2 in my home theater and that's it.
The Apollo is a great deck. It's been around for about 4 years now, which is ancient in digital years, and is still the definitive $1k CDP IMO. I know of nothing that comes close for anywhere near the money. Other players may do a few things netter, but nothing does so many things right and stays as musical as the Apollo does.
That's really why I'm holding out on buying a new DAC. Gotta give Rega a chance.
Nuck - I'll be hookin' her up in the HT system today as a CDP, for starters. I hope to pick up the core of my 2-ch rig from my parents tomorrow and we'll go from there. Will report back with impressions.
Stu - you ever thought about modding yours - actually upgrading the caps within - you handy with an iron? I wouldn't have the guts myself but sounds interesting. I did find a company site and video on it but can't locate it now.
The only Apollo mod I'd be interested in would be a Toslink digital input mod, so I could connect my Applt TV. It would have to be done by someone else and be cost effective. I don't think that day's comming anytime soon.
I'm not in that much of a hurry to get a DAC. I'm planning on having a new one by the end of the summer. The Bryston BDA-1 is the DAC to beat. If I can get something that sounds almost as good for around half the price, I'll have no complaints.
I'm still a couple of years from a DAC, it seems. I have my sights set on the Mastersound Due Venti or Sonneteer Orton integrated and the Box Furniture Company rack. Then I will look at picking up a Roksan turntable and finally move up the DeVore line to the Super 8's (maybe, I do love these 8's).
Using a DAC right now on my two channel rig since my system is, ahem, in flux. I actually don't enjoy the so called convenience of having all of my music on a PC connected to my system. I miss getting up, looking through my CDs, plunking one in and sitting back with the remote.
I get ya Dave there. I've had all the opportunity to fill my PS3 with music and go from there with either a DAC or through my AVR which has a pretty decent BurrBrown DAC but I end up gravitating to my CD collection and going disc by disc...the Apollo is a welcome addition to the mix...I just love the top loading..fun.
Hi.One of the best CD Players on the market at the moment is the Cambridge Audio Azur 740C .Have a look at the link below. Cambridge is a well respected manufacturer of quality audio products from England and have been around for more than 30 years. ================================= [url=http://www.officechairsuk.com/office_chairs.html] office chairs [/url] | [url=http://www.officechairsuk.com]chairs[/url]
Man, every spam post I see is like a pathetic joke. In a thread about the Apollo, let's bring up that the CA 740c is one of the best CD players on the market. Now take a look at the link below. Office Chairs UK??? Yeah, I bet that's got a lot to do with the CA 740c. Are people supposed to fall for this? Honestly, what is the thought process here?
Scorb, as an owner of an 840c, I've got to sort of call you on your claim. Yep, the CA line is good. In some cases pretty darn good. But, that being said, the competition never rests. The top tier today is on the used market in 6 months. There are a LOT of fans of the Apollo on this forum. And, for all it does well / better, it has its little foibles. Some would like balanced outs or even a Toslink IN.....
I'm sticking by my 840, but would never dis anyone for a different choice. Just for example, I completely skipped the 740 when I was looking at players. For the money, I'd have gone either Rotel or NAD or even to the Apollo, which I found local a month AFTER I pulled the trigger on the CA.
I'm going to buy a CD player soon as I trade in my Exposure gear. Frankly I'm not considering the CA players (740c and 840c), or any player that upsamples with no ability to turn that feature off. It's more processing that I fear can degrade sound quality. I've heard it before (upsampling that is) and found it sometimes sounds right, and sometimes not. The NAD C565 likewise has tons of features and I'd rather get a player that's built for one purpose, and that's playing CD's. I'm considering the following:
Marantz SA8003 Arcam CD17 Rega Apollo
The Apollo would probably be seen as the best of the bunch, but the other two are newer and well reviewed and I suspect may match well with my amp (Audiolab 8000S). It's more of a round earth amp rather than flat earth, and I think the same can be said of the Marantz and Arcam players (moreso the Marantz). I'm looking for full bodied sound, great soundstaging, and probably as much detail as I can get. But I like the way Rega machines operate, and as others here have said it's a great player that fits into just about any system well. I don't think the Apollo lacks too much of what I'm looking for. Tough choice!
"I'm looking for full bodied sound, great soundstaging, and probably as much detail as I can get."
Have you considered a tube unit, like a Minimax, Cary, Raysonic, or other brand that does tubes ? What you just described is what they do best....at least in my opinion.
I've put some thought into tubes. I'm not sure I'm ready to do it yet though. I did recently buy a tube buffer that I just haven't had the chance to try. I figured it's a cheap way to try out tubes, though I'm not sure if a simple buffer will convey what a proper tube amp can sound like. But that should work it's way into my system soon.
I like what the 8000S has done for the sound in my rig, and I'm hoping the speakers I get will pull in that direction too. Maybe that'll be enough, and the Apollo will fit in nicely. I'm hoping to settle into a system I really like now, and then explore tubes and that whole area over the next few years before I actually make a significant purchase.
I'm looking forward to hearing the Paradigm Studio 20. The Soundstage and Stereophile reviews seem to really hint at the kind of sound I'm looking for. I've all but decided that I'm going to keep my Quad 12L2. I like the speaker a lot and they will fit in nicely beside the TV.
Dan, if you're looking for a player and you don't need it to upsample, check out the Jolida 100A. I've had t for about 6 months and it's a really good sounding CDP. There's usually a few on Agon for good prices. And it gets you into tubes on the cheap!
The Studio 20's are ok speakers, but I eventually sold mine since they were just a little bright (most people would not describe Paradigms as bright, but they were). Another pet peeve was these speakers are meant to be driven with the grills on (it tames the sharpness). I like to drive my speakers sans grills.
Yeah David, I'm the same. Who in their right mind doesn't want to look at those sexy drivers? I'm wondering if Paradigm changed things up a bit with v5 though, as they mention on their website that the speakers sound great with grills on or off.
The metal tweeter had me thinking of harsh highs too, but any graph I've seen of the Studio line is very flat. Unlike Monitor Audio for example, which has a metal tweeter and, at least with the RS line, has more energy in the high frequencies than the mids. Did you listen to your 20's with the grills on or off? I've read that if you listen without the speaker might become a bit too bright.
When I had my Studios I tried them multiple times with the grills off (they looks sooooo good with the grills off), but they really were too bright, even with McIntosh gear. Stereophile was right in their review when they said they sounded better with the grills on.
Dan, I've tried a tube buffer in 2 of my solid state systems and the results were rather disappointing. Granted, it wasn't a really great buffer so perhaps that was part of the problem. After having owned 3 tube amps now, I can say that having a buffer will not give you an accurate representation of what a tube amp can do for you.
I just had my Rega Apollo's transport mechanism (the whole transport, that is) replaced, by Rega's tech at True Sound, in California.
After over four years of almost every day playing (at least 4 hours a day, often much more than that), it started acting up and screwing up.
But let's face it, I put a lot of mileage on my CD Players (and gear in general). More than most people do, because I work from home and have music playing anywhere from 4 to 8 hours a day (sometimes more), through out the day.
Nick at True Sound did a wonderful job!!
A gentleman, a tremendous technician and generally a very nice guy.
My Apollo is now fucntioning and singing like a brand new baby!!!
Dan, I understand your concerns with upsampling. Don't pass up the CA 840 on that count alone. The Anagram Technologies stuff in this player works as advertised. I know, CA uses odd names but don't let that throw you. The balanced outs help and they throw in a DA for free.
Do you have any disks that consistently sound bad upsampled? Maybe giving a listen would help set your mind at ease.
Hey leo, I don't really mean to badmouth the 840. So many people sing it's praises that it's clearly a great player.
I haven't had too much experience with upsampling, only lived with it in my old Marantz universal for maybe a couple months. The experience was both positive and negative, though I never really spent long enough with the feature to figure out which discs it helped and which it did not. I guess I quickly determined I prefered not using it and that was that. And now I suppose I just don't want to be locked in to not having a choice. But a CA 840 and Marantz DV7001 are definitely different animals.
For sure I'd have to listen to an 840c in my own system before dropping $1,500 on it; whereas with something like the Apollo I'd be comfortable buying without a trial.
One thing I've considered is just getting a standalone CD player without upsampling, and then trying that out via an affordable DAC (perhaps CA) somewhere down the line.
I'm with Dan on upsampling/oversampling. I've heard it change the sound, but never made it sound more like music. I'm of the "don't screw with it, just get out of the way" camp.
DanL, I know you weren't badmouthing the CA, but just speaking about oversampling. I think the CA might deserve a listen if you can get one for a week. might work for you, might not. I'm using the DA section right now from my small dish receiver and it really sounds mucho better than the DA which comes with the dish receiver....no surprise there!
I've considered....and am still mulling over....getting a OPPO 83se to replace my CA and my OPPO upsampler. Later, I'd add the CA DacMagic to regain balanced cabling and be able to feed the signal from my AirportExpress. The '840 does not like the signal jitter from the AE and sometimes loses lock.
NMyTree - nice to hear that you received good service on your Apollo. I've read some pretty good things lately about Rega and the after purchase service they've been providing. Perhaps it's more the distributor, but nevertheless. Although, if they are still pretending that their players have no bugs then that would be silly. I'd be interested in hearing what your player was doing that prompted a transport replacement.
Well said Chris. I would never write off all upsampling designs, but after my experience with upsampling I will just be a bit more careful of buying a player that upsamples. Especially if you cannot de-select the option.
I think upsampling really depends on the recording. To my ears, lower recording quality typically sounded better, and it didn't do too many favors for better recorded stuff. Not a textbook rule, but what most of what I've personally heard revealed to me.
There's some great upsampling gear that doesn't have a defeat switch - Naim's DAC and Uniti, and a few Arcam units come to mind. With the Bryston BDA-1, I think it depends on the recording.
The Bryston is defeated globally, so the soure is read as redbook, or hdcd, insert zero's. I can modify the input to the BDA-1 from the MC and tried it.
For 1500$ for a cdp, I really...REALLY have to recommend the Bryston, again, guys.
My Apollo started doing a lot of the things that has been mentioned before. I'd put a disc in and it would spin, but no music. Then it would lock up, or/and skip tracks.
My Apollo was one of the first batch to come to North america, when they were first released in late 2005 or early 2006.
It performed flawlessy till sometime in 2009. Late 2009, if I remember correctly. When it occasionally started screwing up, I used a natural fibre blush brush and gently brushed the laser mechanism lens. That always worked perfectly and my Apollo would immediately be back to normal for long periods of time.
This year, it started getting more whacky and more frequent. So I contacted The Sound Organisation and they directed me to Nick at True Sound.
Yeah, I guess these players do have their bugs. It took a long time and at least 5,000 hours for my Apollo to have problems.
For 1500$ for a cdp, I really...REALLY have to recommend the Bryston, again, guys.
Nuck, isn't the Bryston more like $3,000?
Oh yeah, I bought a CD player today! Pretty much cost me $1,500. Bit of an impulse buy, I wasn't going to do it this quickly, but once I found out it was still available I pulled the trigger. I kind of always wanted one. Got a demo model Rega Apollo 35th Anniversary Edition. Can't tell it from brand new. It's a sweet looking machine. It's a pretty dark black (unlike some pics I've seen which are more gray looking) and the aluminum buttons and border around the display offer a really nice contrast. Saved $400 off the regular price, though these are getting harder and harder to find. I think I've finally got my electronics figured out, now I just have to determine which speakers I like best.
Stay tuned! I may yet be the proud owner of an Arcam CD17 that actually functions flawlessly. Because that's definitely not the case with the Apollo.
First song I played went well. Then I hit STOP. It didn't. No shock there I guess, but when the disc finally stopped I took it out and put another one in and it didn't even recognize it. I knew there was a problem when it didn't recognize that I opened the door. Unplugged for ten minutes...same thing. The display just says "Rega Apollo" and that's it. It doesn't recognize when you open the door, nor does it initialize a disc. Nothing. Maybe I should try cleaning the lens?
Anyways, it sounded wonderful while it was playing. Really, really great with the 8000S. I definitely want to keep it. Hopefully the issues can be resolved quite easily, because I won't put up with this problem for long. I guess I've got a three year warranty, so no sweating it for a while at least.
Rega's got a damn nice player here, but it's kind of ridiculous that these issues have been out there for a number of years now and they still don't have them fixed.
This is the Apollo SE and it still has the exact same problems that have plagued the Apollo; for three years prior to it's release?!?!?!
Rega should be ashamed of themselves. That's embarrassing.
DanL, sorry to hear you have this problem with your Apollo SE. Man, I know it's such a major aggravation to buy something, pay that much money for it and then only to get it home and have it be defective. So frustrating. It sucks barbwire!
DanL, contact your dealer and insist he send it out to get a new transport, immediately.
Surely they have an excellent, highly qualified tech up there, who can fix 'er up.
Your Canadian distributor is:
Plurison
313 Marion Le Gardeur Quebec J5Z 4W8 Canada
Tel: 866 271 5689
Call them too and express your disatisfaction with this situation.
Yeah, bought it from a dealer and I'm confident I'll get the support I need. NMyTree, you've got the SE too, right?
I was kind of positive last night, saying I've got a three year warranty so I won't sweat it. But I've really soured on this since then. I will definitely get the player fixed (assuming that's what is required) but how can a person trust these players? I don't want a player where I don't know what it's going to do every time I turn it on. And what happens once the warranty is over? Can I seriously believe that I'm going to get ten or fifteen years of flawless performance out of the Apollo?
I'm leaning towards getting it fixed and keeping it for two years, then trading it in. It's going to have to perform flawlessly over those two years for me to even consider keeping it for longer than that. Or maybe I'll try to demo it against the Arcam right now, and if it's even close I may just trade down to the CD17. The Arcam does use a newer, and from what I've read, better Wolfson DAC.
It sounded really great though. Like the little bit of PRaT I was missing when I took away the Exposure electronics returned. The sound was so smooth, but also dynamic and exciting. I had to listen to an album I usually don't listen to (because the Apollo wouldn't stop!), but it was really pulling me into the music, even while I was a little upset at it's malfunction.
I've had the Apollo unplugged for about 12 hours. So I'll fire her up again later today and see what happens. I just want to determine if this is an issue that the player can reset itself out of, or if it's simply a totally defective transport.
No, I don't have the SE. I was going to get it. My dealer had tried to reserve one for me with the american distributor. But upon it's release date, my dealer called to get it and was told they were all gone. Which ticked me off.
I know for a fact my dealer had a reserve in for it. But when I called the distributor to express my disatisfaction, he told me that a lot of dealers had reserves for them. That unfortuntaley, there weren't enough Apollo SE's to fullfill all the reserves. So a alot of dealers got left out.
That's what I was told.
I definitely understand your point about feeling confident of the player, when you want to hear music. You'll have to decide what suits you best.
If I didn't have the experience of three years (coincidently the length of the warranty ) of trouble free performance from my Apollo, I wouldn't have bothered with the new transport. I would have soured on it a long time ago.
But if this new transport starts going bad in a short period of time, I'll wash my hands of these Rega players.
Up till today, I was seriously considering getting the Isis or the Valve Isis. I figured I'd get my McIntosh MCD301 and then save for 6-8 months for an Isis, too.
Would have loved to have both the MCD301 and Isis or Valve Isis in my Mac system. But seeing what you're going through now with a Apollo SE, has made me reconsider my plans. If Rega can't get this nonsense corrected, I'm not spending any more of my money on their products.
Luckily my Saturn hasn't had any issues, whatsoever.
But now I'm concerned about how much more life it's transport has.
From everything I've read and heard and my talks with the guy at The Sound Organisation: the problem is based in the transport, not the operating system itself. But I don't know how accurate or true that is.
I do know that my Apollo is now working perfectly, with the new transport.
For how long? I don't know. But we'll find out soon enough. I'll play this Apollo for several hours a day, every day. We'll see what happens.
I had the Saturn for a little while and it only had issues with skipping tracks. It would go to the wrong one occasionally. It was irritating, but I hit stop and then it seemed to function fine. Worst case I had to unplug it for a minute and then it would work normally. I don't mind doing that from time to time, but having to wait for a player to finish a disc is too much. I didn't want to hit power while it was playing for fear of causing damage.
It's funny that the transport is the issue. I mean, one reason to buy a Rega player is it doesn't have a motorized transport, which can fail. Only thing is that I've never had a motorized transport fail on me. Even on a 20 year old Sony five disc CD changer - it still works.
I think I'm just going to take things one step at a time. Get the issue resolved and see what happens from there. I can definitely enjoy the Apollo for two years and then sell it with a year left on the warranty and get the Arcam.
These issues sound more like a firmware issue than a transport problem. I was having some issues with my Jolida CDP and they replaced the chip in it (from a batch that was known to be working) and it's worked flawlessly since then.
NMT, the 301 is a nice CDP. I never had any issues at all with mine. Stay away from the 201. Like, run.
Well I fired it up today and the display reads "Rega Apollo". Opened the lid. "Door Open". The good news ends there though, as when I close the lid it still thinks it's open. So it won't initialize a disc and of course the disc doesn't spin. It does this every time I turn it on (I've tried maybe three times).
I'm actually glad that it seems to be consistently failing now, as that should help them diagnose the problem. I guess this is more of a software thing, as David was saying. The way it's going the transport doesn't even start working. But I'm wondering now if this current issue has anything to do with the stop button not functioning last night. Are they related, or are there two separate problems? I think maybe the issue last night messed the software up so that it's not working at all anymore. I guess I'll see....planning to take it back on Tuesday.
My VTI BL503 rack that I was putting together on Saturday, has two defects.
To begin with.......
The right post of one of the 9" shelves is not straight. It's actually bent inward by 1/8th inch.
So the spike doesn't sit in the middle of the dimple/spike rest, where the spikes are supposed to be. Instead, it sits right on the edge of the dimple/spike rest and looks crooked and worriesome.
Secondly, the gold/brass cap on the 7 inch shelf is crooked. It looks like during manufactoring they couldn't get it on flush and all the way down mounted on top of the pole. So it's impossible to use it as a bottom or middle shelf. Or in any position where the spike from the above rack needs to rest on it.
Very aggravating. So I called racksandstands.com, today to find a solution to the problem.
I can't say enough about how helpful and determined these Reps are, in immediately solving the problem, at no cost, no extra work/effort and no stress; to me, the customer.
They contacted VTI and they will have two brand new racks (one 7 inch high and one 9 inch high) shipped out to me, today.
I wanted to return the defective racks to them, in the boxes of the replacement racks. They insisted I not concern myself with that. They said I could dispose of them in what ever manner I choose.
I wanted to e-mail them pics of the defects. They said no need to do that.
While it's certainly very frustrating to get these racks here and have the defects. It is absolutely wonderful to get this kind of polite, immediate customer service and problem solving attention!!!
Racks And Stands.com is a top notch, first class operation!! Highly recommended!!
P.S. The dark cherry shelves are gorgeous!! Absolutely beautiful!
P.S. 2
DanL, sorry to hear the malfucntions continue.
Hope you get it all sorted out soon. Please do share your experience in trying to get this resolved.
Racks and Stands is a good business...those VTI stands on the other hand are not very good IMO. I bought one a couple of years ago and it had the same defects that you are talking about. I found that they are poorly built and ring like crazy. Any consolation the Lovan Sovereign is only a bit better. I'm not using a customized Premier which ain't all that, but a definite improvement from the others. My next stand will be Quadraspire Q4 until I can afford a Box Furniture Company rack.
I figured that NMT. It was for me too when I bought one. One of these days I'll give it up for an appropriate rack...for nor the modded Premier is working just fine.
There are definitely ways that you can treat the rack, just be careful that you don't overdamp. Show us pics when you get it up and running!
Hey NMyTree, that's some great customer service. I'll keep Racks and Stands in mind for any future purchase I might make. Good service is important. Big time.
And I'm not at all upset that the Apollo is still acting up. If it functioned normally yesterday then I wouldn't be able to take it back and I'd have this nagging feeling that I had a defective player that was bound to fail again soon. And of course, eventually it would. I hope I can nip this in the bud quickly and get it back in my system. The Apollo is going back to the dealer tomorrow and then all I have to do is wait.
I'll probably get to try out the ProAc Studio 110 (it's all in my thread in the speaker section). The dealer here who carries ProAc is a great guy - I said I'd be happy to stop by and listen to them. He insisted I take them home, because anyone spending $1,500 should be comfortable he's making the right choice. And he said I can hang onto them for a week or even more, as one or two days often isn't enough time. I was really surprised at how accommodating he was. Even if I don't buy the ProAc's, service like this will not be forgotten.
It's a good thing the Apollo is still acting up. A reproducible fault is on that's easier to diagnose and fix. When I sent my Jolida CDP back to the manufacturer, he had trouble reproducing the error and I had to get on the phone with the tech and walk him through it.
I'll be picking up my Apollo in a couple of days. The fellow at the store said they replaced the computer board. Motherboard I guess might be the correct term. It's ready now but I won't be able to get out there for a couple of days.
Okay, picked my Apollo up tonight. Played a couple of discs, skipping tracks like I usually do. The Apollo was flawless. Did you hear that? It was a huge sigh of relief!
I did a little comparison against my Cambridge 650BD and I must say, the Apollo beats the CA handily. It should of course, but it's nice to actually hear it, and I heard it on both discs. Used my Audiolab amp for this test and warmed everything up beforehand. Whatever the explanation is, the Apollo just seemed to separate instruments better, so that everything was easier to follow. The CA sounded more congested - whereas the Apollo sounded smooth and clear, the CA had some grain that made things sound messy. The Apollo did have a more expensive interconnect though, a Cardas Crosslink vs. an Ultralink Discovery for the CA. I may rectify this tomorrow. More listening to do, but this comparison isn't that crucial - the CA is there to play movies and SACD/DVD-A. Redbook will be handled by a dedicated CD player, which I'd naturally expect to do a better job at it. So the comparison of the Apollo against my Exposure 2010s2 CDP will be of more importance.
I'm feeling better about the Audiolab tonight, however. I suspect there must be some sort of synergy between it and the Apollo, as it sounds much better when that is the source in the chain.
The Apollo is a wonderful sounding player...keep in mind that the Apollo, Saturn and probably the Isis occasionally lose their mind. I don't do any skipping of tracks (or not much), not of the ipod generation and I know that the Rega's don't really like it.
This Apollo didn't just lost it's mind, it was pretty much DOA when I got it a few weeks ago. The distributor replaced the PC board. 35th Anniversary version.
I wouldn't say I'm of the iPod generation, Art, I don't even own one! I simply believe that most albums contain plenty of filler, so I skip it. Not all albums, but most.
Glad to see you got it back and that it's functioning perfectly. Good news. I hope it's for the long term.
Mine is functioning perfectly, too. No problems...no stutters....no glitches, so far. I don't typically use fast forward functions. I'm a put the album (or CD) on and just let it play.
I have to repeat myself, again.
There's something special about this Rega Apollo (and Rega Saturn) & McIntosh C220 combo. So sweet...so musical.
Changed the tubes in my C220 back to the new production (New Sensor) Mullard 12AX7 "reissues".
Sweet tubes. Took about 10-15 hours for these tubes to really loosen up and sound their best. This is a nice tube.
Good stuff NMyTree. I hope it's for the long term too. I really love using the Apollo. The top loading mechanism, the display, the build quality, the entire look, and of course the sound. It just screams quality design. That is, as long as it obeys commands!
I have to listen to Mac gear one of these days. There's a few dealers around, but I need to figure out my system first and just be happy with it for a while.
Most albums I listen to don't have any filler or I won't buy them. I see playing songs instead of albums as about the same as looking at one element in a painting without seeing the whole picture, different strokes.