What gives? CD’s, Solid State?

I will bet you anything it is not just because it is solid state or because it is CD. People can argue cd is no good ad-infinitum BUT I have heard CD better than a 10K analog rig and I have heard a 1K turntable sound better than CD.

As a person who owned the Rega plane years ago and have heard the Saturn... whew ...here I go. It is the Regas fault. They look nice and in a budget system I guess they are ok. I could not stand the sound of the Rega units. I used it ONLY as a transport but even as a transport it is nothing to talk about.

It is compressed, cold and lacking any type of musical depth. I remember back in the day the major mags used to rave about the Rega Planet. I could not for the life of me understand what they were talking about.

Try a Consonance CD player but I promise you the Rega CD player is the culprit, don't know anything about there other products, never heard them.

I had a Rega Planet 2000 and it was a bit full sounding and not especialy open or liquid but was pretty good as far as tone and fun factor IMO fwiw...

You are obviously a tube guy trapped in a solid state body.

I agree with the others here that state you need some tubes in the mix. Some nice warm cables may also help.

I run a tube rectified Modwright preamp in my otherwise SS system. It certainly helped to inject some warmth, body, and sweetness (once I found my preferred tubes); while retaining excellent resolution. And, I'm running CD with a SS DAC.

I wouldn’t call my system lush, by any means. But, I’ve got enough of that tube sweetness to make for a highly engaging, yet un-fatiguing presentation.

Mooglie makes a good point. I might think a tubed preamp could be tried.