Manchester Show 2011: Rega previews Apollo-R player
Watch our video report on the Rega Apollo-R
We've had the first look at (and listen to) the new Rega Apollo CD player - the Apollo-R – here at the Manchester Show.
The top-loading Apollo-R follows the Award-winning Brio-R amplifier in both its naming convention (R stands for remote control) and compact dimensions. Both CD player and amplifier will also operate from the same remote, too.
Rega's new Apollo-R uses the same Wolfson 8742 DAC as the company's standalone DAC (reviewed here). You can boost your digital audio still further by using the two products together with the Apollo-R acting as a transport; the result is even better sound quality, Rega claims.
The Rega Apollo-R will be available in late November, priced £548. We hope to review it in our January issue, which is on-sale early December.
The player shown in our pictures here (sitting with its siblings on a suitably compact Custom Designs rack, below) is a prototype - the full-production model will have superior fit/finish.
In other Rega news, the company's Southend-on-Sea factory is being kept busy with booming worldwide orders for turntables. Rega says it's selling more than 1500 turntables a month as the vinyl revival continues (as this news story earlier this week reflects).
Comments
Too ugly to contemplate.
Well, we were there, we were shooting video, so we thought some people might be interested in a clip of the product. No more than that.
Rega turntables are minimalist and gorgeous but they cannot make decent looking cd players - why do they insist on using ugly transport buttons? That remote is bordering on Fischer-Price, do they just assume you'll be using it with a £100+ Logitech or similar universal remote?
I'm sure it sounds gorgeous but part of the pride of ownership is not just how it sounds but how it looks and that is where this product, to my eyes, falls way short of the mark.
Oh, and whilst I'm here - what was the point of the 30 second video from Manchester? It told us nothing more than the text.
And we think streaming is damn exciting, too - which is why every recent cover of WHF features it, yet there hasn't been a turntable on the cover for years!
We're well aware of the niche appeal of vinyl, too - just presenting the facts to an interested audience.
Hi Clare,
I find it very interesting how even a small increase in vinyl sales can be used to, in some way defend the medium and suggest a healthy future for vinyl.
The sales are miniscule and pressing plants are and have been shut down over the past few years.
In addition, a lot of the vinyl pressings now are re=pressings of very famous lp's, indicating the market to which they are aimed. I.E. older consumers who remember quite fondly the good old lp record. In addition, running off a few limited edition copies of an artists new record is also happening, but these are limited and not the norm, and are there purely as a way of making a little more income for the artist concerned, in a time when making a living from selling records is very hard.
The new Gary Numan record is a good example of this, although his vinyl is more specialist/fan based and not general and is because of this more expensive.
Also vinyl, by and large costs more pound for pound that the equivalent cd or download.
If televisions were being defended in the same way you are defending vinyl records then televisions would sell almost no product and the medium would be a curiosity at best.
I love lp's, I quite like cd's, I hate downloads, I love streaming, I dislike dvd-a, sa-cd, dvd, blu-ray, anything 3D, HD, home theatre, surround sound.
We are all different and put up with different amounts of whatever new technology is thrown at us.
My neices would not know what a lp was. They also own no cd's and I know for a fact that they both have Spotify accounts.
It will be a fair while before streaming takes over the world, but it will happen.
I think streaming is as exciting a proposition as must have been thought by people experiencing the 7" single for the first time in the late 1940's.
I think the player looks great and at a buyable price. So glad to see that quality CD players are still being made. Give me CD/vinyl over downloading anyday. Vinyl sales are up to their highest level in six years.
Everybody knows that vinyl sales are miniscule, and will stay that way.
Just because Rega are selling many turntables every month, it does not follow that vinyl sales are on the up. Many people will just use them to play the old records they already have, with just an occasional new purchase.
As for the launch of a new cd player. You do have to wonder why. At least one top end manufacturer has stopped making cd players completely and sales of cd's dvd's and blu-ray discs are all apparently falling in America. And where America goes, we will surely follow, if we are not there already.
Streaming is where it is at now. Even downloads are being seen as the gigantic pain they always were in my opinion.
Streaming/simplicity is the only real everyday sensible option.
Sure, one can dip in and taste the options of the past, but the past is surely where these other options are now situated.
Nice
Very Regaesque 
Any chance for a digital input or is Rega position that this would canibalize DAC sales?
As mentioned in the text, these are prototype units - fit and finish will be slicker on the finished product....
My God ... it looks like a CD player fom Philips in the 80's.
Why do high-end manufacters insists on building components with the least attractive interface.
hhmm not the prettiest deck around
I hope it sounds better than it looks , I'll hear tomorrow