I have not heard the Ayon, so no comments on it. I have owned a Rega Saturn-R for about 3 years now, and I like it a lot. I like the design Philosophy of a top loading CD transport and a separate DAC combined into one chassis. And it is built like a brick of solid aluminum.
I think the Rega sounds great. It is a warm sounding CD player with great bottom end weight and I find it good top to bottom. I also use the built-in DAC with an external streamer and sometime with my cable box.
Seems to me that used Rega Saturn-R are selling for somewhere around half of the original $2995 MSRP. That's about what I paid for mine 3 years ago.
