Rega Saturn. Is it really a giant killer?

I owned a Apollo, and had the chance to do side by side compaison with the Saturn. Now I own a fairly decent high end rig, and try as I might I could hear damn little difference between the two players. Rest assured as some of you might think, I'm not deaf, but I did extensive testing for about four days and clearly to me it seemed that the Saturn was not worth two and one half times the price of the Apollo. I matched levels as closely as I could. If anything the Saturn seemed ever so slightly brighter. The dealer told me the Saturn was fully broke in. Don't get me wrong, I think they are both darn fine players,but ultimately I prefer the Cambridge Audio Azur 840C to either of these players, but that is just my opinion and two cents worth.

but ultimately I prefer the Cambridge Audio Azur 840C to either of these players

Mr_m, why so?

Tonyptony has ask me why I prefer the Cambridge 840C over the Rega Apollo and Saturn. First, please understand that this is just an opinion and is what my ears hear in regards to these players. As I said before, I've had both the Rega Apollo and Saturn in my highend system for extensive listening comparisons. When I put the Cambridge player in my system, I immediately heard an air and openess around instruments and vocals that gave them an incredibly live characteristic. To the extent that I never heard from the Rega players. Timbral accuracy in the lower midrange was also uncanny, to the likes I've never heard in a CD player before. Very analog like if you will. Couple that with a more powerful and defined bass line and smoother less bright treble presentation. This is why I prefer the Cambridge over the Regas, and this is why I now own the Cambridge Azur 840C...

To my ears, not hardly. I got a chance to listen to the Apollo and the Saturn at a local audio dealer this weekend. The Apollo sounded so bad in their listening room that it was all I could do to not squirm out of my chair. It was completely lifeless (it was a pretty "dead" room anyway). I kept wondering if something was wrong with it. Then they hooked up the Saturn and the difference was immediately obvious. The Saturn sounded much more "alive" than the Apollo.

So, I took the Saturn home on a home trial. I use Magneplanar MGIIIa speakers and an early Adcom preamp and amp. My current CD player is an old CAL Icon MkII. I love the CAL, but one channel is going out. I might be able to get it repaired (the company is now out of business, but there are people who repair CAL CD players), but I wanted to see what I was missing in a new player.

In my system, in my listening room (YMMV), I thought the Saturn had decent but not great highs overall, a clear, detailed midrange, and a reasonable amount of deep bass. But I decided that this was not the player for me. It is more detailed than my player and the sound seems better controlled or damped.

I like rock, jazz, jazz/fusion, and electric blues the most. These all have two things in common:

First, they need pretty solid mid-bass and deep bass for the lower notes of the electric guitar and the notes of the bass guitar to seem solid enough. The Saturn (and other players I've listened to recently) do not have this quality.

Second, it has to have "drive". I don't know what it is that gives a player "drive", but I would explain it as "punch" - the impact of the low end, the rhythm, the power, that drives rock and jazz/fusion and anything electric. The Saturn does not have this drive/power/authority/punch that is so needed for electronic music. I found listening to electronic music - classic rock, Al Dimeola's jazz/fusion electric guitar, John Scofield, recent ("modern") blues, etc. to be totally lacking in power. The Saturn just didn't make me want to "move". There was no drive to power the music along. It was analytical rather than fun to listen to.

One other thing I didn't like was the way the midrange was presented on my system. The higher midrange - where the bite of the electric guitar is, female voices, choruses voices higher in the midrange frequency, came through nice and clear and detailed, and right up front where I like it. A little bright, but it sounded good. However, the lower midrange where male voices are and some female voices was distant, like being in the nose bleed section of an auditorium. I can't attribute it to any particular CD or artist, and my CAL player doesn't have this problem. If I were to venture a wild guess, I would say that the Saturn is purposely tuned this way. It reminds me a lot of what I noticed when I bought my Grado SR325i headphones - the same general feeling. This was, according to Grado, a decision that Joe(?) Grado (whichever Grado family member it is that runs the place now) made to try to add some better soundstage characteristics to these headphones. I'm beginning to wonder if a similar decision was made when voicing the Saturn.

Listening to Eric Clapton/BB King's CD "Riding with the King", Clapton and King's voices seem so distant that I can barely pick them out of the mix and it is hard to really here what they are singing. Yet, Clapton and King's guitars are noticeably more forward than the voices. I also listened to a vocal CD called "Circle of Light", and the voices in the chorus sounded like they were far away from the microphone. Some of the female solos with lower-pitched voices sounded that way too, but when the voices - individually or massed - reached into a slightly higher range they moved forward out of the background.

I also listened to "Ancient Echos" - a male Russian choir. Their voices sound full and and sometimes reach into the bass regions of the male voice (deeper voices) - this is on my CAL player. With the Saturn, the voices are noticeably more midrange, and there are no lower pitched bass(?) voices.

In general, I thought the Saturn sounded thin,detailed, almost clinical sometimes, but overall not very involving or dynamic in my system.

It may sound completely different in your system, with your speakers, in your listening room, but it is, IMHO, not to be bought (especially at $2500!) without at least a few days of home trial.

I'm still looking for a CD player with the positive qualities of the Saturn, but that is fun to listen to, involving, and has enough oomph to rock, yet is delicate enough to do simple vocal music too.

I'm thinking now of listening to Naim or Primaire.

Timoteo, that is quite a surprising evaluation you have done for the Rega Saturn. The last words I would use on the Saturn would be anything but thin and almost clinical. If you want a more dynamic and involving sound, you might want to scratch Primare off the list. Naim players may have the PRAT that you are looking for. Nevertheless I seriously think it might be your Adcom amps that might not be driving the Magneplanars optimally in producing the drive, punch and dynamics that you are seeking.