We take a CD and travel to Saturn... The Rega Saturn MK3 CD Player/DAC that is!
/Our Journey begins.
Rega have quite a history in making well regarded CD players, the Planet CD player from 1997, then the Jupiter 2000 from the year, well, 2000. The Saturn R CD player came along in April 2004 and was equally well received. Since then we have had the Apollo half width case Cd player and the beautifully constructed Isis Cd player from Rega’s Reference range.
It’s a brand new ship.
Just like the rings of Saturn, good things usually come around again, only this time wearing a different suit. Enter the new Rega Saturn MK3, all new but not quite. Let me explain.
Rega have been changing their casework recently, the new Aria, the power supplies for the P10 and P8 and the very cute Rega Fono MM and MC, all look better for it. The casework is very slick.
The Saturn MK3 however, is the first of the full size cases to adorn the new architecture, the new casework and button layout is probably a clue as to what the new range of amps coming from Rega will look like.
Lets take it to the bridge.
You may have noticed the very cool looking CD mech that Rega use for all their CD players. The disc is housed in a fixed position that clicks into spring loaded mechanism. Not having any plastic cogs and gears for a drawer that opens and closes just reduces the possibility of things going wrong inside the CD player. The cover for the CD is reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise, which when closed just glides beautifully into place using a quiet damping method.
The communications hub and engine room.
The Saturn MK3 has plenty of connectivity options around the back, up to and including 24bit-192kHz audio.
There are two optical and two Coaxial inputs, a fully asynchronous USB as well. So that’s five digital inputs for items situated close by such as a TV or network streamer or even a digital tuner and more.
Interestingly the USB input on the back has three LED’s surrounding it to indicate status, so after you have downloaded the correct drivers you can get on with listening to your lush 24/192 files from your computer.
The lights, which indicate, comms, power and data at least let you know if you’re doing it right when they all light up, if somethings wrong one of the lights (or all of them) won’t come on. A great little touch from Rega to help you get connected easily and to confirm that the correct type of data is getting through.
Two Wolfson WM8742 digital-to-analogue converter chips are at the centre of this machine, these take care of dishing out the digital signals to two outputs and of course also do the job of converting to analogue as well. And at this they truly excel.
Communicator check one two one two.
To the sound quality, well, firstly it’s important to remember that this Saturn MK3 is the same on the inside as the Saturn R MK2 from May 2013. Only the case work has changed. However, Rega have refined the build process and introduced stricter production tests and checks, to improve reliability even further. As a result our opinion of the Saturn hasn’t really changed. We have always liked the sound signature from Rega’s Saturn MK2, which is to say that it’s an open sounding CD player with lots of forward sounding pop.
It grabs your attention and keeps you focused on the music, in fact, on our last demonstration our customer was quick to point out these very same traits, and of course he purchased the unit.
Live long and prosper?
It’s also only fair to say that in this time of dwindling CD player sales the bulk of our focus is on the streaming side of things when it comes to digital music, the Saturn MK3 CD Player/DAC and other CD players tend to fade into the background until a customer comes along and asks for a demo. That’s when our interest is usually peaked and when we realise what an impressive bunch of nuts and bolts the Saturn actually is - Which often starts the debate about whether CD is actually dead. Interestingly, according to data from RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), CD sales have rose for the first time in 17 years. Yep, you heard that right, CD sales have gone up! How long will this trend last? Well, does it matter? Not really, as most of our dedicated customers have significant sized libraries of CDs to peruse from anyway, it’s just matter of dusting off the collection and letting the Saturn MK3 works it’s magic.
The new Rega Saturn MK3 CD Player/DAC is on demonstration at our Manchester store.
Come along and take some of your CD’s for a spin.
Dave, Munir, Mike , James and Haden will be on hand to help.
Thanks for reading.
Munir - Audio T Manchester
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