Rega DAC-R DAC Review

[Haskil]

Not quite. The output stage of the very first Rega Planet was realized with a Sanyo LA9215/6 integrated circuit, which incorporated onto a single chip six Op Amp to make stereo LPFs and output buffers with an attenuator on both channels and an analogue muting circuit on power ON/OFF. This Sanyo chip even incorporates its own regulated power supplies and a +5V regulated power supply output to power the DAC chip.

So, there was next to nothing left for the manufacturer to make a homemade design.

It's even worse than I remember...

And audiophiles despise Japanese CD players even though by buying a Rega they were buying a Sanyo player slipped into a Rega case...

This British brand has managed to acquire an aura of great musicality by selling entry-level electronics two to three times more expensive than the equivalent at Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, Kenwood, Onkyo, Technics, Aiwa, etc. and less good !

This is one of the most harmful intellectual scams on high fidelity there is... At least Linn was ruinous but had real skills but developed the same sectarian spirit as NAIM which took him to its climax sold electronic products of very high prices which only found their fulfillment powered by external "power supplies" of prices totally disproportionate to their design...

 

[restorer-john]

t's even worse than I remember...

Nothing wrong with the Sanyo chip whatsoever- for low end CD players. It comfortably exceeded what was needed for a commodity big-box store basic player.

Just like the Toshiba all in one chips that came after, even with onboard D/As, SPDIF out and bypassable (or not) opamps. Great for portable CD players, car audio and boom boxes. Strap a $5 laser mech up front and it was a complete solution.

 

[DSJR]

Now, being audio SCIENCE review, what we need now is a stripdown of the Planet and Apollo CD players compared to the Sanyo made machine they supposedly place inside... Some quite dangerous allegations being made by possible keyboard warriors here...

Here's a link to the clamshell planet which we found to be very competitive to many alternatives at £600 with Couple (Klots AC110 based) inbterconnect and the Remote which was optional (in the UK, alternatives were mainly from Marantz, Arcam and Rotel for example)

https://flic.kr/p/5f1RP1
Got to say I see no Sanyo boards in this model. There may be other tech issues in this old design, but based on a portable player? Oh, you mean the top loading transport

Sadly, I can't find pics of the Apollo R internals, but the previous wide stylee model is here -

I'll add this for good measure and wait for the wolves to descend

hack the Planet!

 

[audio_tony]

There appears to be two versions of the planet, the other having '2000' appended to the model name.

The only visible Sanyo part is an output IC (LA 9216) - a bit of a strange choice when the PCM1710 DAC only requires a pair of OPAMPS on the output...

Both models use Sony lasers - the Planet a KSS-240A and the Planet 2000 a KSS-213B

So I'm not quite sure where the Sanyo accusations are derived from, unless it's the use of the aforementioned Sanyo chip...

EDIT: corrected 200 -> 2000

 

[Mart68]

All UK manufacturers bought their digital from Japan, nothing was designed or made in house.

Just make up some fairy-stories about musicality and charge a premium price. Costs more = must be better as per the Audiophile Rainbow.

Nothing wrong with Sanyo either. I think the point is you could have bought a Sanyo CD player and it would have been no different.

(Rega Planet was $800 in 1998 when you could buy a bin-end Sony or Technics for a quarter of that. With better specs too).

 

[Haskil]

Nothing wrong with the Sanyo chip whatsoever- for low end CD players. It comfortably exceeded what was needed for a commodity big-box store basic player.

Just like the Toshiba all in one chips that came after, even with onboard D/As, SPDIF out and bypassable (or not) opamps. Great for portable CD players, car audio and boom boxes. Strap a $5 laser mech up front and it was a complete solution.

You will have misunderstood me... Which is worse than what my memory dictated... In fact Rega sold an OEM Sanyo player from the mechanics to the output stage... and received criticism laudatory listening reviews from the magazines which praised the analog quality of the sound of this Rega turntable... the same journalists spoke badly of the sound of the Japanese turntables from Sony, Technics, Yamaha and co...

 

[Haskil]

All UK manufacturers bought their digital from Japan, nothing was designed or made in house.

Just make up some fairy-stories about musicality and charge a premium price. Costs more = must be better as per the Audiophile Rainbow.

Nothing wrong with Sanyo either. I think the point is you could have bought a Sanyo CD player and it would have been no different.

(Rega Planet was $800 in 1998 when you could buy a bin-end Sony or Technics for a quarter of that. With better specs too).

Yes... it is possible that I was a little hasty in my accusation, but all the electronics which accompanies the mechanics and are not nothing... are not from Rega... This player does not was not at all competitive in France next to entry-level brands from Sony, Philips, Marantz, Denon, Onkyo, Technics... which were systematically looked down upon for their lack of musicality next to Rega (Pkilipps and Marantz aside who saved the furniture...)

 

[Scytales]

The first device taken in photo above in DSJR's message is of the first iteration of the Planet CD Player.

I owned one. It was my very first CD Player that I bought with hard earned money obtained tanks to my first summer job when I was at the university. At that time, at the end of the 1990s', the Rega Planet was marketed as a refined audiophile player by the French Hi-fi press and abroad and it wasn't cheap, by any standard. I was young and still very much under the influence of the Hi-fi press. The discourse of the salesman in a high-end Hi-fi store was the nail in the coffin which led me to purchase this CD player.

I got frustrated of this player in less than six months. Then, I tried a cheap-ass whatever-name flimsy Chinese-made DVD-player that my little sister had bought in a supermarket for peanuts. I was shocked to hear a much wider bandwidth sound coming out of the DVD-Player compared to my expensive and appraised Planet.

Then, I loose faith, began to learn electronic (as a hobby) and opened the Planet. I got my second shock when I saw for myself the very low standard of construction, componentry and overall electronic design inside that thing.

By the way, it was written in a French Hi-fi review that I had also read at that time that the output stage chip was designed for portable audio devices.

 

[DSJR]

All UK manufacturers bought their digital from Japan, nothing was designed or made in house.

Just make up some fairy-stories about musicality and charge a premium price. Costs more = must be better as per the Audiophile Rainbow.

Nothing wrong with Sanyo either. I think the point is you could have bought a Sanyo CD player and it would have been no different.

(Rega Planet was $800 in 1998 when you could buy a bin-end Sony or Technics for a quarter of that. With better specs too).

You couldn't get a proper dem into a decent sound system of Sony or Technics machines back then as dealers had to buy it all and they also changed models AT LEAST once a year!!!!! The Planet with Couple and Remote was usually compared with the ever popular Arcam and Marantz machines (8 and 8+) and it more than held its own. Add a Mira (Clamshell) and Juras with Cable Talk 4.1 cables and you had a delightfully entertaining domestic music system which looked neat enough, was reliable and with excellent back up service if needs be.

Hell, you try getting parts and engineer-service for a late 90's or even noughties far eastern CD player. I believe mechs for the Planet can still be got?



The thing is - and answering a post by @Scytales above, the Planet was so quirky with its lift-up lid that after 2000 or so, interest waned as few younger clients wanted such a device. rather, said customers who didn't want an AV system, wanted a front loading stackable system by Arcam or whatever all neat and tidy in a rack... By the time I left retail in 2004, Rega was on the way down as all interest was home theatre and in my view, the '2000' Mira and Planet just didn't 'do it' for me as the clamshell models did and customers to our store just had increasing resistance to the styling (nickel sockets were used as the feeling there was against adding yet another layer of metal onto a base (subjective I suspect) so why not leave the sockets in simple form (the Couple interconnect had Neutrik Pro RCA plugs with retractable outer rings though, so go figure

So many contradictions now, it makes me wonder how I could feel honest with myself here, but I was in it all for so long that looking back, I remember how vinyl 'died' around 1988 and low to mid priced stereo systems took a dive around 2000 in favour of cheap often nasty 'Home Theatre' systems with banging bass for film explosions with little 'egg type' satellites for speakers (KEF did two, the 5* cheap one sounding muffled on music and the larger less known one very much better but rather more expensive - this corresponding to the rise and rise of Bose Acoustimass systems which were awful on music but tolerable with a picture to watch). I had a two year disastrous (for me) stint on the road and this AV trend was all over southern UK, specialist music only dealers taking a bit of a hit I remember. Those Rega systems I sold DID make for very enjoyable music reproduction regardless of SINAD or any speaker response plots though (I learned how to best optimise the mk1 Jura for best bass in-room and it worked for us, this long before the sub several hundred $/£ far eastern made models flooding the market today).

 

[Sokel]

I had lot's of CD players,the best of the best in terms of usability,durability and sound was oddly a DENON DVD-5000 and a Pioneer DV-656A

(I also had one with a nice case,can't get away from looks)

 

[audio_tony]

Hell, you try getting parts and engineer-service for a late 90's or even noughties far eastern CD player. I believe mechs for the Planet can still be got?

You'd be surprised at what you can get.

The problematic mechs are the higher end stuff from Sony and Philips, (and the less prolific stuff like Kenwood, Luxman and so on) but apart from that many lasers are still available (albeit random Chinese stuff which doesn't always work properly) and motors etc. can be scavenged from complete mechs available on Ebay.

Where there's a will there's a way.

 

[restorer-john]

Got to say I see no Sanyo boards in this model. There may be other tech issues in this old design, but based on a portable player? Oh, you mean the top loading transport

Actually, it is a ghetto blaster/portable mech. Super cheap.

 

[Mart68]

You couldn't get a proper dem into a decent sound system of Sony or Technics machines back then and they also changed models AT LEAST once a year!!!!! The Planet with Couple and Remote was usually compared with the ever popular Arcam machines (8 and 8+) and it more than held its own. Add a Mira (Clamshell) and Juras with Cable Talk 4.1 cables and you had a delightfully entertaining domestic music system which looked neat enough, was reliable and with excellent back up service if needs be.

Hell, you try getting parts and engineer-service for a late 90's or even noughties far eastern CD player. I believe mechs for the Planet can still be got?



The thing is - and answering a post by @Scytales above, the Planet was so quirky with its lift-up lid that after 2000 or so, interest waned as few younger clients wanted such a device. rather, said customers who didn't want an AV system, wanted a front loading stackable system by Arcam or whatever all neat and tidy in a rack... By the time I left retail in 2004, Rega was on the way down as all interest was home theatre and in my view, the '2000' Mira and Planet just didn't 'do it' for me as the clamshell models did (nickel sockets were used as the feeling there was against adding yet another layer of metal onto a base (subjective I suspect) so why not leave the sockets in simple form (the Couple interconnect had Neutrik Pro RCA plugs with retractable outer rings though, so go figure

So many contradictions now, it makes me wonder how I could feel honest with myself here. Those Rega systems I sold DID make for very enjoyable music though (I learned how to best optimise the mk1 Jura for best bass in-room and it worked for us, this long before the sub several hundred $/£ far eastern made models flooding the market today).

This is a digital source - why would you need a demo when you can see from the measurements that it is doing nothing wrong?
If it has a sound of its own it's a fail at the starting line.

There was never any point demoing anything except speakers and even then that is only valid in the room in which you will use them. Not in the showroom.

So the Sony or whatever fails after 20 years, it was £100, you just get another one. Why go to the bother of repairing it?

I agree nothing wrong with the SQ of the all Rega systems I have heard. But if we are offering good consumer advice about value for money then they can't be recommended.

It's a salesman's job to sell - you can't blame him/yourself for doing that. It's the customer's job to properly research his options. If he doesn't then he will end up spending more than he needs to for the same result.

 

[DSJR]

You'd be surprised at what you can get.

The problematic mechs are the higher end stuff from Sony and Philips, (and the less prolific stuff like Kenwood, Luxman and so on) but apart from that many lasers are still available (albeit random Chinese stuff which doesn't always work properly) and motors etc. can be scavenged from complete mechs available on Ebay.

Where there's a will there's a way.

What about 'non-we' out there with a twenty five to thirty year old system where the CD player goes down? They're not going to try to find donor machines or suspect imported parts let alone fit them themselves. Said old machines will be down the recycling centre in the container full of cast off computers and vacuum cleaners!

 

[DSJR]

This is a digital source - why would you need a demo when you can see from the measurements that it is doing nothing wrong?
If it has a sound of its own it's a fail at the starting line.

There was never any point demoing anything except speakers and even then that is only valid in the room in which you will use them. Not in the showroom.

So the Sony or whatever fails after 20 years, it was £100, you just get another one. Why go to the bother of repairing it?

I agree nothing wrong with the SQ of the all Rega systems I have heard. But if we are offering good consumer advice about value for money then they can't be recommended.

It's a salesman's job to sell - you can't blame him/yourself for doing that. It's the customer's job to properly research his options. If he doesn't then he will end up spending more than he needs to for the same result.

Oh Mart, get a grip man and return to your youth for a minute This was 1998 long before sites like this one and tech measurements were usually severely coloured by subjective appraisals (HiFi News, HiFi Choice and HiFi Review in the UK, which we've discussed recently).

 

[Sokel]

Oh Mart, get a grip man and return to your youth for a minute This was 1998 long before sites like this one and tech measurements were usually severely coloured by subjective appraisals (HiFi News, HiFi Choice and HiFi Review in the UK, which we've discussed recently).

Yep.
I got the Denon at around 2000-2001 and the first CD I got with it was Mark Knopfler's Sailing To Philadelphia just because it was an HDCD and I wanted to test it with it (test=listen ) and was curious about it.
I was impressed by how quiet it was (thick case helped) and was no cheap.

 

[DSJR]

I'd like to see how long in the 1990's UK scene a small independent dealer wanting to make an honest living would have lasted with the 'It's a well measuring digital source, why would you want to 'hear or demonstrate it' line' would have lasted All best intentions, but one needs to play the game...

Things have changed a hell of a lot since, costs have fallen due to cheap far eastern manufacturing which we may come to regret in time possibly and my ASD side really dislikes having to chuck out things if there's a chance of repair and refurbishment (said ASD side hates to sell things on too, which is driving herself up the wall as it's GOT to go before too long). I rebuilt with new motor a 2001 era top Dyson cleaner a year ago which entailed a filthy total strip down to get at the motor which is encased in a rubbery shell. Motor cost £20 or so plus a few hours of swearing, replacement even with a cheaper non Dyson model would have been >£100

 

[AdrianusG]

Yep.
I got the Denon at around 2000-2001 and the first CD I got with it was Mark Knopfler's Sailing To Philadelphia just because it was an HDCD and I wanted to test it with it (test=listen ) and was curious about it.
I was impressed by how quiet it was (thick case helped) and was no cheap.

I had a couple of very nice CD players in the past , but there's only one i regret selling, it's this one (Philips CD 960)

if i could find a nice one in mint condition at a fair/good price
i would not hesitate!

 

[DanielT]

I had a couple of very nice CD players in the past , but there's only one i regret selling, it's this one (Philips CD 960)

if i could find a nice one in mint condition at a fair/good price
i would not hesitate!

Don't cry blood over that. New times now.
See #183 in this thread.

Edit:
Just plug a modern DAC into any player that has a digital output, all done.

 

[AdrianusG]

Don't cry blood over that. New times now.
See #183 in this thread.

Edit:
Just plug a modern DAC into any player that has a digital output, all done.

Still it's one of the best sounding and best looking!, (Eye of the beholder and all that) CD players out there, classy but not overdone in it's styling, and pretty well built (around 10Kg).
It was the last very well built Philips machine, after that everything turned to cheap plastic, not just Philips in that regard btw.