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Rega's new Saturn-R CD-DAC

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Saturn-R CD-DAC

Design technology
The Saturn-R is the result of many years of innovation, advanced software development and elegant engineering solutions researched by our highly skilled team of engineers and designers. It took the completion of two of our multi award winning products, the flagship Isis CD player and the Rega DAC to pave the way for a unique product we feel encapsulates everything the new Saturn-R should be.

Introduction
The Saturn-R CD-DAC player offers complete flexibility and integration into any system. Essentially two products in one, the Saturn-R houses a high specification transport and independent DAC circuit. Both sections are fully remote controllable via the supplied Solaris remote handset. You will find plenty of connectivity options, all at the highest possible resolution up to and including 192KHz-24Bit. The Saturn-R has two optical inputs, two Co-Axial inputs, a fully asynchronous USB and an added ‘direct’ digital output from the CD playback section. This ensures the Saturn-R integrates perfectly into any system and provides the perfect partner for the Rega Elicit-R integrated amplifier..

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CDP Features
The Saturn-R uses our proven digital to analogue converter and analogue output amplifier technology coupled with a pair of Wolfson WM8742 digital to analogue converter IC’s. The Saturn-R has improvements to the CD section power supply which was a result of the research & development of our reference Isis CD player along with the improved microcontroller and display drivers.

Technology
The Saturn-R uses a high stability master clock and high capacity power supply in the CD circuitry, high performance PLL digital interface receiver, isolated digital inputs and high performance power supply architecture in the DAC circuitry. Signal switching between the CD and DAC functions are performed in the digital to analogue converter stage. The signal path of the CD section in CD mode is kept to a minimum.

USB 192KHz-24bits asynchronous
The DAC USB input has been improved with asynchronous operation at sample rates of 44.1 to 192 KHz with a bit rate of up to 24bits. The USB input has the same galvanic isolation as used in the Rega DAC. The USB uses dedicated drivers in the computer, enabling full ASIO operation, thus eliminating signal degradation caused by generic windows based drivers.

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SATURN-R XMOS USB DRIVER V2.15.0

Before you can use the USB function of the Saturn–R you must first download the Rega USB Windows driver and install it on your PC.

Located under ‘downloads and drivers’ on this webpage.

Follow the instruction for installation. Once installed, USB will be ready to use. This driver is not required for MAC OS.

PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOUR SYSTEM IS CONFIGURED CORRECTLY TO OUTPUT HIGH RESOLUTION FILES WITHIN YOUR CHOSEN AUDIO/MEDIA PLAYBACK SOFTWARE.

If your PC does not default to the connected USB audio device you must select the XMOS AUDIO DEVICE FROM THE DROP DOWN LIST.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's EAR headphone amplifier is reviewed in the January 2014 Edition of Hi-Fi News Magazine.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's Apollo-R CD player Hi-Fi Choice group test winner - April 2014

“The Apollo-R is a brilliant disc spinner – it is mesmerisingly entertaining to listen to. It seems to unlock a whole extra layer of emotion in the music, as if to remind you that it isn't just hi-fi that you're listening to, but the expression of some poor musician's tortured inner soul. It makes everything an intense experience, and is guaranteed to keep even the most sleep-deprived night owl capivated on the edge of the sofa.”

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Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's new Elex-R integrated amplifier

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Design Innovation

The Elex-R is built to the highest standard and designed to deliver the best possible audio performance whilst remaining simple to use and easy to setup.The Elex-R is built into the full width Rega case with increased heat dissipation, which along with a larger transformer enables the Elex-R to deliver 90 Watts per channel into 6Ω and 72.5 Watts per channel into a design centre rating of 8.

Our time, effort & money have been spent on developing the circuit and construction utilizing the highest specification of components throughout. As part of the design we have included useful features like pre-amplifier output, to enable the new Elex-R amplifier to be used in a wide combination of systems and have avoided superfluous gadgets such as tone controls or a headphone socket as they can obstruct the signal path and degrade the produced sound quality.

The Elex-R has been built to Rega’s extremely high standards of reliability and quality to ensure many years of musical enjoyment. The primary function of an amplifier is to boost and equalize the low level signal generated by a phono cartridge, DAC and CD player or other source component to a level that can drive the loudspeakers. It is vital that the amplifier achieves this whilst minimising distortion, as this would directly affect the music. The distortion level is typically 0.007%; just under the clipping of the output.

The volume control and pre-amplifier used in the Elex-R is designed to overcome the problems associated with the standard arrangement. This design uses a custom chip along with peripheral support IC’s like a microcontroller and a custom made rotary volume control.

The Elex-R uses a combined feedback and passive volume control, where the feedback and input levels are varied to set the required volume level. The level and tracking between the two channels is set by the close tolerance parts in the pre-amplifier circuit and less by the actual potentiometer itself, thus keeping the mismatch of channels due to volume control tracking irregularities to a minimum.As well as keeping tracking irregularities to a minimum, this method also reduces noise and input overload as the control will only ‘use’ the required gain to amplify the signal.This form of volume control is normally only found in professional broadcast environments where accurate low noise control of levels is required.

Power Amplifier Technology

The output amplifier used in the Elex-R, Elicit-R and Brio-R was born after extensive research by our engineers to develop a low source impedance emitter follower Class-A driver stage. This is based around a complementary pair of 150w Sanken Darlington output transistors. The technical and sonic improvement gained by the use of low impedance drivers is well known, however, it can feature high standing currents in the driver stage when using standard transistor configurations. By combining the low impedance driver with the Sanken Darlington transistors (with their imbedded thermal bias network running at a lower standing current) this combination forms a complementary emitter follower emulating Class-A conditions with good thermal stability with lower standing.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's new RP10 turntable

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The RP10 represents the biggest step forward in the evolution of Roy Gandy’s turntable design philosophy.

This extends further than ever before with advanced components built around our radical new plinth design. Featuring the brand new RB2000 tonearm, a ceramic flywheel effect platter and the custom RP10 power supply (allowing total control and accuracy over both motor vibration and speed performance) guarantee the highest level of performance from a Rega turntable to date.

Available with the option of the RP10’s perfect partner, the Rega Apheta moving coil cartridge factory fitted (recommended).

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http://www.rega.co.uk/rp10.html

http://www.rega.co.uk/apheta.html

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's new Elex-R integrated amplifier - What Hi-Fi Award winner 2014 for best stereo amplifier £800-£1500

http://www.whathifi.com/rega/elex-r/review

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Design Innovation

The Elex-R is built to the highest standard and designed to deliver the best possible audio performance whilst remaining simple to use and easy to setup.The Elex-R is built into the full width Rega case with increased heat dissipation, which along with a larger transformer enables the Elex-R to deliver 90 Watts per channel into 6Ω and 72.5 Watts per channel into a design centre rating of 8.

Our time, effort & money have been spent on developing the circuit and construction utilizing the highest specification of components throughout. As part of the design we have included useful features like pre-amplifier output, to enable the new Elex-R amplifier to be used in a wide combination of systems and have avoided superfluous gadgets such as tone controls or a headphone socket as they can obstruct the signal path and degrade the produced sound quality.

The Elex-R has been built to Rega’s extremely high standards of reliability and quality to ensure many years of musical enjoyment. The primary function of an amplifier is to boost and equalize the low level signal generated by a phono cartridge, DAC and CD player or other source component to a level that can drive the loudspeakers. It is vital that the amplifier achieves this whilst minimising distortion, as this would directly affect the music. The distortion level is typically 0.007%; just under the clipping of the output.

The volume control and pre-amplifier used in the Elex-R is designed to overcome the problems associated with the standard arrangement. This design uses a custom chip along with peripheral support IC’s like a microcontroller and a custom made rotary volume control.

The Elex-R uses a combined feedback and passive volume control, where the feedback and input levels are varied to set the required volume level. The level and tracking between the two channels is set by the close tolerance parts in the pre-amplifier circuit and less by the actual potentiometer itself, thus keeping the mismatch of channels due to volume control tracking irregularities to a minimum.As well as keeping tracking irregularities to a minimum, this method also reduces noise and input overload as the control will only ‘use’ the required gain to amplify the signal.This form of volume control is normally only found in professional broadcast environments where accurate low noise control of levels is required.

Power Amplifier Technology

The output amplifier used in the Elex-R, Elicit-R and Brio-R was born after extensive research by our engineers to develop a low source impedance emitter follower Class-A driver stage. This is based around a complementary pair of 150w Sanken Darlington output transistors. The technical and sonic improvement gained by the use of low impedance drivers is well known, however, it can feature high standing currents in the driver stage when using standard transistor configurations. By combining the low impedance driver with the Sanken Darlington transistors (with their imbedded thermal bias network running at a lower standing current) this combination forms a complementary emitter follower emulating Class-A conditions with good thermal stability with lower standing.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's new DAC-R DAC

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Developed to be simple to set up and use, the Rega DAC-R is designed to optimise performance from any twomchannel PCM digital audio source.mWith the PC now widely accepted as a credible medium for storing and streaming music,the use of high quality lossless files such as WAV, FLAC and ALAC offer performance through the DAC-R equal to, and in some cases better than, Red Book CD. Great care has been taken to remove noise generated by the PC and other input sources. (During development this was identified as a major drawback with many DAC’s on the market today).

The DAC-R is housed in a custom aluminium and steel case and boasts a pair of Wolfson DAC IC’s, three user selectable digital filters and one isolated asynchronous USB, two isolated Co-axial inputs & two Toslink SPDIF inputs. The DAC-R has been designed and engineered to integrate perfectly intonany system and achieve the highest performance in its class. We hope you enjoy this Rega product for many years to come.

The optical and coaxial input stage comprises a Wolfson digital receiver with a high stability, low jitter clock driving the receiver PLL. The receiver and PLL have their own dedicated power supplies.

The DAC stage comprises a pair of parallel-connected Wolfson WM8742 DAC’s, that are driven via a buffernstage, which ensures the integrity of the data being fednto the DAC IC’s similar to the arrangement used in the Isis reference CDP. The USB input stage is comprised of a bit perfect XMOS USB Audio 2.0nwith asynchronous clocking. The USB input stage feeds the Optical and Coaxial input stage via an isolating transformer giving total isolation from the host computer.

The output amplifier employs a discrete differential, multiple feedback filter and output amplifier, with a high cut-off frequency for use with higher sample rates. We decided not to use a sample rate converter and process the data at the incoming sample rate which keeps the signal processing to a minimum. Jitter was minimised by synchronously clocking the digital data with our receiver PLL (removing any jitter from the input signal). All the capacitors associated with the analogue signal path are audio grade bypassed with MMK polyester capacitors, and low impedance conductive polymer capacitors are used for DAC decoupling. The power supply utilizes a toroidal transformer, fast rectifier diodes and again audio grade capacitors. There is a power supply for the control micro controller, separate from the digital & analogue audio stages. Special attention being paid to the inter IC control signals ensures the control data noise is kept to a minimum.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
Rega's RP8/Apheta reviewed in the December 2014 issue of What Hi-Fi

"This deck delivers a sound full of energy and sparkle"

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More details to follow

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft
 
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