Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

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.

I'd like to add that those who have the machines currently and say they operate fine, you may be in for a suprise. My 3rd Apollo worked fine for 6 months before bugging out, and got worse as time went on. I am convinced that the problem is bugs in Regas new operating software. That Rega was unable to supply a properly working machine over a two year period and that Rega and distributers/dealers continue to say "your the only one" or "there's just a few" is a lie. I have owned 3 of their turntables, several of their cd players and one of their amplifiers. The whole experience with the new rega machines has led me to the decision that I personally will never buy another Rega product again.

Good Morning

The last time I posted onto a site was several years ago and gave up as basically it seemed some people did not want to be confused by the facts. At that time someone was asserting that Rega cartridges were being made in the Far East, when I corrected that and said no actually all made in the UK and hand assembled even the $145 Bias I was told that was just my "opinion".

Anyhoo, as the US Rega distributor I think I can offer a unique insight as I actually know how many units we have sold how many failures and the nature of the faults.

The first batch of Apollo's several years ago now had a sporadic issue with a chip set and the wave soldering process, it exhibited itself pretty much after a few days and we swopped out all the units concerned which was in the region of about 5%.

Since that time both the Apollo and Saturn have been remarkably reliable. Any electronic product will have the odd issue some may be down to impact damage during shipping that does not exhibit as a destroyed box. With both CD players some of the odd issues we have had relate to the unit's software getting glitched.

The Apollo and Saturn as you may be aware use a very different type of disc reading and the memory used is an order of magnitude above other units, so in some ways it is more akin to a computer than a CD player. 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.

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.

Do we have the odd issue absolutely but no more or less than in any other area and having been involved in audio for more years than I care to mention Rega's reliability is superb and even shames way more expensive product that I have sold.

To the dealer who posted "feedback" issues we have not heard of this from any dealer that I am aware of so please give a call to ascertain what might be going on in the system.

Doug's issues seem particularly perplexing as I know that we and his retailer have not been able to duplicate many of the faults described. But as Doug will attest we and the dealer have given 100 % effort to making him a happy customer. We have been in contact Doug via your retailer and of course we communicated when you undertook your review.

So I guess to sum up if we had some widespread problem we and Rega could not afford or would continue to sell the players, but for every issue you may read about on the web you don't see the literally hundred's of customers who have a CD player that offer's amazing performance and plays music for them on a daily basis, so the ratio and outlook gets a little skewed.

Hope this may help

Best regards
Steve Daniels
The Sound Organisation

Steve, thanks for your response. I'd like to say that indeed you and Allen at Audiowaves provided superior customer service surrounding the issues I had with the new Rega cd players. I am well aware you do not make the machines, merely provide sales support and service and to that end I commend your excellence, and to Allen as well. I have suspected and posted that it is the new operating software for some time now. I would like to state I am not doug shroeder but had the same problems he did. I have used the machine in accordance with all operating instructions and do not have any unconventional lighting system in my house. With the Saturn I never even used the remote control. Here is what happened twice in last 2 months with my Saturn (and about 7 or 8 times total with my 2nd and 3rd Apollo machines). So I had the fault on 3 out of 4 machines. I pressed stop on the front panel button, it did not stop, I pressed stop again, and the disc kept playing. After a few more tries (my experience is if the first stop command does'nt work none of the following ones do). Since The machine still would not stop playing the disc, I opened the lid....the disc kept playing. The only way to get the machine to stop playing was to turn the power off. To me this was the most bothersome of the problems I experienced, but I also thought unreliable operation of the remote was an inconvenience as well as disc initialization failures. You may argue otherwise but I feel you should not have to turn the power off to change a disc on a 2600 dollar cd player. Taken alone each thing would maybe not be enough for me to jump ship, but all the issues taken together were enough for me to seek a cd player elsewhere. I asked Allen to see if there are any firmware updates for the machines (I thought of this because I heard Denon had provided firmware updates for some its DVD players). Allen told me no. At that point I decided to not send my Saturn for service, because I had 3 machines back and then get the same old problems again. I really dont know how you would explain that Doug Shroeder and myself had a total of 9 or 10 machines and none operated correctly. Are you saying our sample is part of only 5% error rate? As Doug says this seems highly improbable. Additionally if you read this thread there are other posters besides that have issues with the new Rega machines. How many Saturn/Apollo users post on forums? I dont know. In retrospect I should have hung onto my Jupiter machine.

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.