Whoops-Wolfy had to remind me that I needed to respond here... First of all, I am a Rega junkie from what I've heard in the Rega line. Have owned TWO Planet 2000s at various times, TWO Jupiters (my all time favorite cdp ever until now) and also own a Planar 2 for LP play back. I stupidly sold my first Jupiter, and after a year without one, bought another. Jupiters at the average $650.00 used price are a stupid good deal BTW...Rega to me is concerned with what I am interested in; they concentrate on two channel music that I can listen to through their gear. I've had THREE count'em Jolidas come through here with NOS tubes, A Rotel 991, YBAs Denons Tjoeb 99 Philips SACD 1000 Pioneer AX-10 (a $6000.00cdp) etc etc etc all in search of a way to tame the digital sound which I hate and also of which I own 600+ cds (PERFECT ANNOYING AFTER A FEW HOURS SOUND FOREVER). The Tjoeb 99 was flabby-awful sounding muck, the 991 was just an average cdp with nice build quality, the SACD 1000 of course crapped out after a month, the YBA was average average sounding, the Pioneer? Over-priced over-built bright sound (hey they were on close-out for $995.00... I WANTED to like the Jolidas but with good NOS tubes it sounded wierd (no offense but it just didn't do much for me). So anyway I kept reading about how with the Apollo, that Rega had reinvented the cd wheel after 3 years and kept reading the glowing reviews. Meanwhile my Jupiter had been happily spinning my cds for the past year with not a thought about ever upgrading.
Enter the $785.00 preowned two week old Apollo that popped up on Agone one day that I grabbed. Compared the Apollo directly with my Jupiter for a week and the Jupiter is now gone. The Apollo is the real deal trust me. If you want a cdp that doesn't annoy the hell out of you, this is it. It's one of those components (like my 5 year old Meadowlark Kestrel Hot Rods OR the Norh Prism 6.9 speakers) that just plays music. Rega is one of those companies that deserve every positive accolade that is heaped on them because their gear just plays music. One of those pieces of gear that somehow somewhere the manufacturer got right. My last cdp player period (unless I find a screaming deal on a Saturn
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