As one of the first in North America to own privately, then review publicly, both the Apollo and the Saturn, I have added a Preface to my review published on Dagogo.com in January of '07. It is pertinent to this discussion and to any potential purchasers.
Note that there is an error in the last line which will be corrected; "preference" should read "preface". |
People should test these machines for glitches from commands issued via the controlls on the face of the units. The first two I used ALSO glitched that way. I would not be surprised in the least if the defective units still exhibit this tendency. That convinced me long ago its NOT an RF issue. |
Will, et. al,
The original review, which discusses the glitches, is accessed under the Recent Reviews column on the left side, in the Sources section. My Preface, added this past week, is accessed from the review itself by clicking on the red lettered sentence. Here's the link:
http://www.dagogo.com/RegaSaturn.html
I have addressed this issue thoroughly in my review and preface, which I added recently.
But know this, I believe I was the first (if not the absolute first, among the first handfull) to post questions in regard to the operations of the Saturn on audiophile forums. I have also followed the issue closely the entire 1.5 year period. I have seen many posts in regards to individuals claiming problems with their players. If this were potentially a case where only myself and one other person were plagued I would not bother the audiophile community, nor suggest that Rega has a manufacturing/quality control problem.
What would be the odds that of all the Apollo and Saturn units produced I would receive five defective ones while no one else had issues? If you know anything about statistics, the chances are vanishingly small. Taken with the fact that I have seen several posts from individuals in the past 1.5 years claiming problems suggests to me that there is an issue not being addressed.
Is it possible that in every instance where faulty units are being used there is in that environment a remote control infra-red lighting system or similar IR interfering device? Statistics would again say that's not likely. The odds are strongly in favor of my conclusion.
Assuming that persons who play whole discs through would not be aware of these issues, there may be many more players out there with the glitches which are undetected. For those people it may never be an issue. But for people who skip tracks or stop the player to change it the problem manifested itself too regularly in different players to be ignored.
A $2400 player should NOT have such issues, which is why I posted the Preface to the review. I gave the benefit of the doubt initially; now I do not. I am convinced that the issue is not related to infra-red interference, but a defect in the units themselves. Whether that defect plagues the entire production and has not been detected by all, I cannot say. Some seem to have perfect players. However, the appearance of posts in regards to faulty units purchased only one month ago makes a person wonder if the issue has been resolved and these are older stock players, or if the problem persists in the manufacture of the players. Only Rega can properly address that question. |
Rega has been absolutely silent on this issue. I have not heard from the distributor, nor Rega UK about it. The dealer insists that I am the only one of his customers who has had any issues with the units. I believe this dealer is a man of integrity, and though the odds of that are smaller, I believe it could be true because the pool of customers is smaller for him than the overall sales population for the Apollo/Saturn. Nevertheless, I see too many reports of issues from online forums, private emails, and my own experience with the units to conclude it is just my having some "bad luck". I do not believe in luck; I do, however, accept probability. The probability in this situation indicates that there are larger issues with the production of these players. |
I should point out that I did not really expect conversation with Rega's headquarters. It would be exceptional if they contacted one owner of a product with a malfunction. If their dealer is also stating that he has no issues with other buyers then they would likely conclude the problem is isolated. Over time the issue became more pronounced (i.e. multiple players) and manifested itself to include a wider population (people who have voiced concerns, but may not have yet contacted Rega's headquarters) than just me.
I did, however, expect that the issues with just produced players would die out after 1.5 years. I assume they would be more likely to take notice or make changes if larger numbers of customers with problematic players contact them. In a nutshell, Rega UK needs to hear from a lot more people about this if anything is to be done about it. |
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. |
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. |
Fillmoor, where are you getting this information about computer/software guys designing the system? It would certainly explain why oversights like a silent FF function could occur. I have never heard of an audiophile cdp with a silent FF! Makes it a fairly useless feature. I was told that functionality was not built into the chip set. If there were computer/software guys designing it, that would surely explain it! |
Thanks for the lead on that article! |
In addition, I inquired of Rega why the units have silent FF function as opposed to virtually every other player under the sun. The answer I was given was that particular functionality had not been built into the chip set. It certainly opens up the possibility that there have been some other glitches in the operating system. |
Kbarkamian, I believe the problems will return. I had a couple units which could go a week without any problems, then they'd surface. Display not coming back on? Have not heard that one before. Add it to the list... |
