Is it me? Comments on the Rega Mira integrated.

In a comparable price range I rather like the Roksan Kandy 3, though it's not much to look at. If you can afford a bit more scratch, the Primare integrateds sound just fabulous they can sometimes be found for under 1K and would be my first choice. The Arcam A85 is a nice choice as well, though it lacks a bit of bite and is functionally a bit busy. Finally, the Bryston B-60R is very much a high end product and can generally be found for under $800.00, it is very linear and built to very high standard. It goes to the top with the Primare in my book. All of these amps have less character than the Rega. Happy hunting.

An integrated that matches your requirements very well, I think, is the Audio Refinement Complete. I haven't compared it to a Rega but mine is certainly accurate, detailed and musical.

Thanks for your comments, Viridian. Brash is a good word to decribe the sound of my Mira. Besides constrictive. And tubby. Not satisfactory. Any suggestions for an amp to go with my other gear? Balanced, accurate, airy, detailed, MUSICAL.

Some distinctions need to be drawn here. The original Mira, with the cast wavy case, similar to the original Planet, was a bit bright and brash with good slam and pace. The Luna, mentioned above is similar. The second Mira, often incorrectly referred to as the Mira 2000 in the USA, used the Sanken output transistors with integral thermal sensors. These are the same, excellent transistors favored by Musical Fidelity and many other brands. This Mira is much warmer and smoother with the somewhat less than stellar bass control, as mentioned earlier. Pace, as with all Rega gear was still excellent in spite of this. The current model, the Mira 3, has a new volume control, I believe that it is a resistive ladder. It is a tad cleaner than the previous model but really not scads different in sound quality. As far as matching to your system, as always, it's horses for courses, Afleet Alex.

I too have had a Rega Luna since 1999 and have driven Mission 765,KRK monitors and Merlin VSM-MMs,all to good effect.Must be a synergy mis-match?Good luck,Bob

I think the Rega Brio is the best kept secret in hifi. The phono stage alone, which is a built-in card, is worth the price of the piece.

Dear Entrope: my speakers are Mordaunt-Short Pearl 20i monitors, bi-wired. I tried single-wiring the speakers last night and that tamed the bass quite a bit, but the soundstage still seems very constricted compared to my Marantz SS Special Edition which is quite airy. I think you may be right about the amp-speaker interaction -- just not a good pairing. I like my Marantz but was hoping to find something with similar sound but more detail.

I would have to say my experience with the Rega Mira has been the opposite: very clean, open, smooth, non-gritty non-transistor sounding integrated. I am very pleased with mine. Now it doesn't have the bass control of 5k and up amplifiers and extreme transparency soundstaging and openness of expensive tube gear but for $800-900 integrated it's pretty darn good, IMHO. Mine is running in a second system with following components: Rega Jupiter 2000, cables Cardas Golden Reference and Golden Cross, Ensemble Animatas, Rega Vulcan, filtering by Tice Solo HC. I have another system for home theatre using a Rega power amp, the Rega Maia, and that is a different story. I compared the Maia to my other more expensive power amps and comparitively found it to be a little constricted and closed in.

My daughter has a Rega Luna in her bedroom system which is essentially the same circuit as a Mira. It is a decent integrated even for a solid state. The soundstaging is good, detail is much better than most SS amps in the range, it leans toward warm -the Rega sound. I found the highs to be clean but not extended and the bass reasonably tight driving PSB Alphas. It replaced a Cambridge Audio integrated which sounded very unrefined by comparison.

It must be you. Just kidding. Perhaps it is not a good match for your speakers (which you did not mention) magnifying some of their weaknesses with its own. I can see that this amp might be a bit tubby with already warm leaning speakers.

For what its worth.....