Rega Apollo CD-player
Externally, Apollo is no different from the Planet and Jupiter models - the same monolithic aluminum case, top-loading transport, display, controls and finish (silver version is also available). But, anyway, there are differences.
Rega Apollo, in addition to CDs, plays compressed mp3 and WMA audio formats, as well as uncompressed WAV. For many music lovers, this is already a significant plus. As follows from the description, new things are a remote control system and a drive mechanism that provides data reading with a minimum level of errors. The entire digital part has been thoroughly remade, starting with the "superstable" clock system and ending with the DACs (the latest Wolfson WM8740 DACs are used now). And the main detail: the conversion to analog is preceded by special mathematical signal processing, the main purpose of which is additional error correction. In ordinary players, correction is carried out according to simplified algorithms, and in Apollo, thanks to the significantly increased buffer for audio data, errors are eliminated in full accordance with a special table that was calculated by Sony and Philips back when the standard for CD was adopted. And the final touch: the analog output stage operates in class A.
If we single out the device in the review, taking into account only one criterion - the volume of reproduced musical information, then Apollo should definitely go first. Listening to the CD on the new Rega player, I sometimes want to check - whether the discs that were stored in your music collection are those? The device pulls out a lot of minor sound nuances, which, it would seem, have never been in the phonogram. This is especially true for bass and midrange bands. Apollo makes you literally feel the individuality of the sound of each instrument and at the same time clearly separates them - both harmoniously and spatially. Fans of beautiful dynamic sound may not like Rega - the top is devoid of audiophile shine, and a slight compression is felt in the middle lane on the fortissimo. But if we talk about the naturalness of sound and realism, then Apollo simply leaves no chance for competitors. Even when we tried to listen to CD copies in compressed formats, we were pleasantly surprised by the musicality.
