Rega Apollo-R CD Player

Here we have an example of the Apollo R CD player from British specialist Rega Research. It comes in good condition, with a little light marking on the top of the unit – please refer to the photographs. It is supplied complete with original factory packing, mains cable, and of course, our standard 3 month warranty.
Rega Say….
The Apollo-R is the result of many years of innovation, advanced software development and elegant engineering solutions researched by our highly skilled team of engineers and designers. It took the completion of two of our multi award winning products, the flagship Isis CD player and the Rega DAC to pave the way for a unique product we feel encapsulates everything the new Apollo-R should be.
The original Apollo CD player launched in 2005. It was a huge success selling approaching 20,000 units worldwide. The Apollo was a unique player featuring Rega’s own software and control system ensuring no other manufacturers player could sound the same. This key element is carried forward and improved into Apollo-R.
Development of the analogue, digital and control domains ensured direct improvements of both analogue and digital outputs making the Apollo-R a perfect partner for the Rega Brio-R amplifier and an ideal ‘CD format’ front-end for the Rega DAC. The Apollo-R internal circuitry has also been improved by tightening the PCB layout.
Apollo-R is a top loading design housed in a custom compact aluminium case matching the Rega DAC and Brio-R amplifier. The Apollo-R is available in both black or satin silver finish.
A new dedicated CD remote handset is supplied as standard which also has the advantage of Rega amplifier functionality .
The DAC and the output amplifier of the Apollo-R have been enhanced using the Wolfson WM8742 digital to analogue converter, the same integrated circuit found in the Rega DAC.
The ‘digital’ power supplies feeding the CD processor, optical block, laser diode amplifier and slicer have been enhanced. This is achieved by using the same high performance low noise power supplies found in the same location within the Isis CD player. This vastly improves the playability, error correction and the ‘inner core’ processing of the digital CD ‘spinner’ part of the Apollo-R.
The discrete output amplifier has been tweaked to reduce the overall THD from typically 0.005% to 0.0025%, whilst at the same time improving the overall sound quality of the output amplifier.
We have improved the user interface control by using a dedicated display microprocessor, which eases the workload on the main control processors giving an improvement in the control code stability, usability and improved speed of initialisation of the disc being played which now matches that of the Isis CD player.
To the best of our understanding, there have only ever been five large multinational companies with the technology and knowledge base to develop the remarkably complex operating software for CD players. Development of this software and chip-sets to operate CD transports was generally curtailed in the 1990’s. After this time all development effort was directed towards the design of DVD players and other advanced formats. Rega and other specialist Hi Fi manufacturers were totally reliant on companies like Sony and Philips to supply transports and their operating chip-sets. In 2003 Sony stopped supply and sent the specialist Hi Fi industry into a flurry of activity in search of feasible alternatives. Many manufacturers were able to resource their supply from Far Eastern companies. Rega worked hard to locate a British software company who were developing a totally new disc operating system. A system, which was highly advanced, even in the early development stages. Rega was the only manufacturer to develop the unique new disc operating system. Due to ever increasing computer processing power and memory capacity it was possible to build in an enormous increase in memory capability. This allowed the data retrieval to meet the original CD ‘Red Book’ specifications without compromise to the musical performance. All previous chip-sets were unable to achieve this due to their limited memory and signal processing capacity. Rega’s new British designed chip set contains over 20MB of memory with 32 bit digital signal processing capacity and Rega has used this computing power to give a far greater musical performance. We hope you enjoy this very special CD player; we have spent a very long time creating it, drawing on all of our nearly 40 years of experience in specialist Hi Fi manufacturing.
The Apollo-R is the latest version of Rega’s best selling CD player. Rega were the last major specialist hi-fi manufacturer to make a CD player. We have used this time to observe the development of the medium. Rega believed that we should develop our own product that came from our own philosophies concerning sound quality, reliability and value for money. The Apollo-R CD player has a unique sound that harmonises with the rest of our products and we feel offers greater musical performance than the usual HI FI approach. Our proven top loading design remains for several reasons. Firstly, complex motorised tray mechanisms are vulnerable to wear and therefore a cause of unreliability. Secondly, the use of our underslung transport location allows engineers immediate access, if service is needed. Housed in a brand new case the Apollo-R draws on the pedigree of the previous incarnations of this model.
Specifications:
Laser: Semiconductor laser
Wavelength: 790 nm
Line Output Maximum Level: 2.15 V (minimum load impedance 10 kΩ )
Digital Output Maximum Level: 0.5V (load impedance 75Ω )
Digital Sampling Frequency: 44.1kHz
Power Consumption: 13.5 Watts at 23 0V (minimum 190 V maximum 253 V) @ 50/60 Hz
Dimensions: 220 (W) x 315 (D) x 90 (H) mm