Rega Apollo Vs. Saturn?

I have a Saturn + the Rega DAC. I performed extensive A/B comparisons of the Saturn through the Rega DAC against the pure Saturn into my LFD amp and Harbeth Compact 7's. In every instance, the pure Saturn came out ahead. Before buying the Saturn, I was planning to use a Music Hall CD 25.2 through the Rega DAC for CD playing but experienced a lot of jitter issues. So now I am quite satisfied with the Saturn for CD's and the Rega DAC for all the computer based music.

Given my experience, I would say that all the opinions that an Apollo + Rega DAC are better than the Saturn are inaccurate and probably more speculative than actual testing based.

Mkimsey - Just curious, what are your impressions Saturn playing CDs vs. Rega DAC playing computer-based music?

So far I prefer the Saturn and CD's. It's close. Frustrating thing is, that to get hi-res out of the Mac I have to use a good quality Toslink cable because USB will not play in hi-res in the Rega Dac. I've had a Naim CD5X in the past and an Audio Aero Prima and feel the Saturn is comparable. I like that it evaluates a disc to optimize it before playing.

I once had the loan of a Wavelength Brick for a few weeks and that was incredible. I would have gone that way but I thought the Rega Dac would take care of CD & Computer, whereas the Brick can only do USB. Had I known I would be buying a stand alone CDP anyway, I would have bought a Brick for the Computer side. I still may wiggle back that direction yet.

Back on the CDP.... you can still get a new Saturn for $1800. The "trade in a clunker promo" is still in effect though many dealers don't promote it. At $1800, the Saturn was a no brainer. (See Gene Rubin.)

Hi-res out from USB out of a Mac into a Halide Bridge is the way to go with the Rega dac. Unfortunately they cost $400 but it makes the Rega sing with re-res out of a Mac.
Comparing a dedicated $2,400 cd player to a $1,000 dac is not completely fair anyway.

Add up the cost ($1,000 dac, $700 mac mini, Halide $400) and that combo really then competes directly to the Saturn.
Plus you still have 3 more digital inputs for other sources if you need.

The Rega DAC doesn't do high-res through USB. It'll handle it through all other inputs, but not USB. Could be downsampling, but I'm not sure how you're getting it to work.