Rega Ear Mk2

I am due to hear the amp over the next couple of days. For the demo I will be using 650's, will let you know how I get on.

The Rega Ear is a great little headphone amp, typical Rega as it performs better than you'd expect for the price, I would also look at the Heed Canamp, this really is a step up in performance that will give far more expensive head amps a run for their money although it is a little more expensive, still cracking value though and well respected in headphone circles.

As ever it depends what headphones you will be running and hard they are to drive.

Well i bought one yesterday and was surprised to find that the four main capacitors-which are supposed to be nichicon FG arnt.In fact they arnt even nichicon full stop!!!!!!!! So ive shelled out almost £200 and their using inferior caps???????Or are the caps inside my amp better than the nichicon FGs has anyone else noticed this and if so maybe you could shed some light on exactly what these caps are and whether they are on par with the nichicon caps or are in deed inferior?????

Rega don't say the four main caps will be Nichicon FG.

They say...

"Utilising the design ideals of the ‘cascaded emitter follower output stage’ with a pair of complementary Darlington output transistors, along with Polyester film and Nichicon FG capacitors in critical positions ensures it is our most advanced performing headphone amplifier to date."

I guess it's open to interpretation what 'critical positions' means. I am not trained in electronics design and I never took my old Rega Ear apart either. (It sounded great with my old Grados for 10 years and that's all I was bothered about.)

However, you have only just bought it, so taking it back for a full refund should be easy enough. (Unless, of course, it sounds really good. If that matters.)

If you go onto youtube and type in rega ear headphone amp, the video at the top of the page from stereo design clearly shows the four nichicon Fine gold caps in the mk2 rega ear amp.They are the only four nichicon caps in the amp-two for each channel left and right-output caps.If i take it back to my friendly hifi dealer-they will just say the warranty is void because i have opened the case.Very convieniently there is no direct way of contacting rega to ask why the caps have been substituted.Any contact has to go through a dealer.Dont get me wrong-i love regas new kit-ive got the apollo r and rega dac.But ive also heard about other people who have opened their units to find inferior components inside.I understand that times are hard for retailers and manufacturers,watching profit margins.But just be more honest about what exactly they are selling and you are spending your hard earned cash on.

Further to my last message-i have now found out that rega had been having problems with the nichicon caps exploding prematurely.So an equally high quality cap was sourced from another manufacturer.Hence the latest batch of amps were fitted with the revised caps.Hope this helps potential buyers.