Saturnalia

[Jason]

I have been listening to Rega’s Saturn-R CD player/DAC for the purpose of a review in a certain audio journal and the experience has been so thrilling that I thought I’d share my impressions. To be honest I don’t know how they do it, how can you make a CD player that’s so engaging and exciting at such a reasonable price (£1,598). OK it’s not the prettiest of devices, in fact it’s finish is borderline agricultural, and the sound lacks the refinement of some competitors but its ability to extract the musical performance from a disc is virtually second to none. I interviewed Rega’s urbane owner Roy Gandy for Tom Tom recently and discovered that he is not at all convinced about streaming or computer audio. Listening to the Saturn-R explains why that is. There are few if any file playing devices that have the ability to carry you away with the music that this player does. It reminds me that when I reviewed the Isis several years back I came to the conclusion that it was the best CD player I’d ever heard. The Saturn-R does the same thing but with a bit less refinement and ultimate resolution. But it gets very close and in terms of emotional engagement there can’t be much between them.

I even managed to counter the aforementioned limitations with the aid of a mains regenerating device. This removed all traces of grain to leave a shining, three dimensional sound in the room, should you drop some ZZ Top in the disc bay it becomes very hard to sit still. Since then I have been digging out all those discs that have only been streamed for the last two years and discovering what it was that inspired me to buy them in the first place. The Saturn-R works well as a DAC, particularly well if you take the digital output of a Unitiserve and connect it to one of the two coax inputs. And USB ain’t bad either but there’s something about its disc playing abilities that will refresh your entire music collection. In other words it’s a full on scorcher and the best reason for turning off the telly I’ve heard in a long time.