Rega's ISIS CD player is here

you have a point.

 

I will bet the new Rega player is a great player, but at that price point I still think the Ayre C5-XEMP is the benchmark for all players. Unfortunately, I cannot afford either, but if I could it would sure play back CDs and SACDs.

It will be interesting to see how it stacks up vs the Bryston player that is one heck of a CD only player at way less than 1/2 the cost. If you can afford the new Rega player I am happy for you, and even somewhat envious.

I eagerly await the reviews, and even more comments here.

 

Sorry, but this does not make sense. Do you buy gear so you can listen to "audiophile" recordings with good SQ? In my book, good hi-fi is about making the music you like sound its best, making all music sound good. Gear that doesn't do this or that kind of music is not well engineered imo.

If your friends have a really expensive system and play "average sounding" CDs on it, it is probably because they like the music and their system is good at presenting it at its best. Do you suggest that they listen to "good" recordings of mediocre music just because their system sounds expensive? Hi-fi is about being able to play the music you like and enjoying it, the gear is just a means to an end.

I bet the ISIS kicks **** with all kinds of recordings, be it compressed Libertines or a well recorded Scarlatti concerto.

 

No. You have totally missed it. There is a point here and it's a good one - nothing to do with audiophile recordings.

 

Not to me. Lower range of hifi. Above midfi, and well above budget.

 

Personally I think the sound of CD players is very subjective and they need to do one thing, which is to make the owner happy.

I've had a couple of Rega CDPs, and several others some in a much higher price range. The "keeper" for me is the Quad 99 CDP-2.

 

Have you used your player as a DAC and had any decoding problems with all rates up to 24/96? Thanks in advance.

Jim

 

I think for many folks it's easier to spend $9,000 buying CDs over a five year period than paying $9,000 for one CD player all at once. I also think that CD players (and universal players) in this price range do sound different enough from one another on a high resolution system to make auditioning mandatory. The Rega or Ayre or (fill in the blank) may not exactly be your cup of tea sonically, and the lack of SACD and/or DVDA capability may also be an important consideration. It was for me.

 

It certainly does look like a beautiful machine and wow would I love to buy one . I have a Rega Apollo and Love it , but I don't think I could afford this one. I could just see the expression on my wife's face when she say's "what a nice looking player, how much was it"? Then I tell her 10 Grand. LOL . I probably will listen to one somewhere though just to check one out for the pleasure of doing so.

 

I looked at the manual on the Rega site, the USB digital in is limited to 24/48.
It might even be limited to 16/48, but will do 44.1 via the USB.

The USB input is there for use with HT, portable and computer hook-up, definetly intended as a stand alone player and not a DAC.

 

That might be (financially) dangerous....what happens if you fall in love with it ?

 

Hi Jim,

I've never used any of the digital input features in the CDP. From what I've read on various forums many people use them and are happy with the results, but I can't personally comment on it.

Using the player as a stand alone CDP gives a detailed and warm sound and it reminds me of good records more than anything else I've listened to that is under the "superbucks" category.

Joe

 

If you have the funds, and you are serious about CD reproduction, then more power to you...get the ISIS, or Naim 555 or Wadiaever....

Me, I'm happy with my recent $250 purchase of a Pioneer Elite D6 SACD/CD player. But that's because it's all I can afford for now. But you can bet your Jimi Hendrix that if I win the lottery tomorrow, I'll make a phone call to Roy Gandy himself, quicker than a Texas tornado for one of them ISIS, and P9, or a Wadiamacallit...

- Sushimaster

 

Jeff how does the Neko D100 DAC compare to the sound of the ISIS?
I recall reading that the Neko D100 sounds almost as natural/analog as cd players costing in the mega bucks, but not having that last bit of resolution. How does it fare with the Rega? Thanks.

- Sushimaster

 

That's pretty much the case. The D100 is very musical, but it does not possess the fine inner detail or the dynamics of the ISIS. But a very nice DAC for 1200 bucks...

 

Ridiculous. My NAD C 515bee with only 450 bucks list price sounds already 2 classes better than an average cheap CD or DVD player, the stuff that most people use in this world. As for ratings 90 points and Top HiFi Class already just a step below High End Class = that is the REGA entry level, Musical Fidelity A1 or A 5.5 - stuff between 1 and 2.5 grand - is already High End. True audiophile quality HiFi, fit to be matched within a rig costing 5 or 10 grand. 95 to 110 points

The Meridian G 8.2 ( 115 points) 3.3 thousand Euros would be the level where the average income dedicated audiophile stops. The last step in performance costs more than double what the step from average to High End costs.
That is why that stuff is called reference - to show what a brand can come up with if money is no concern...
The percentage of folks who actually puts 10 Grand over the counter is very very small....

 

I guess I was saying for hifi CD players (not talking about dross) there are budget players, like on Oppo or something around the $2-300 mark, midfi players (no slur) like Baron Von Talbot's NAD from $400-800, then lower price hifi under $1500, middle price hifi under $3000, and top price hifi. Totally arbitrary, of course.

 

So if you pay $9,000 for a new Isis and add another $21,000 for a great pair of speakers with a sub and some nice amps, you have a more than magnificent high end system which will give you years of enjoyment. Lets say you keep this for 15 years - there are 780 weeks in 15 years. $30,000 divided by 780 =$38.46 as the cost of ownership per week if you don't borrow the money to buy it. Now this makes high end audio a bargain! I've taken this approach myself and friends think I'm nuts - the same people who buy new cars and Jet Ski's on finance for more money than I've spent on hifi. My point is that depending on how you look at it, $9,000 for a cd player can be extremely good value over the long term. It just depends on your priorities. Personally, I'd much rather drive an old car and spend on decent audio gear but that's just me!

 

Gotta agree with you there....

 

I can easily hear difference between various masterings on my system, and I am just sharing my opinions with others here on this forum. Nothing "grandiose" about it, and my opinion is not worth more than others.

 

No offense taken at all. I can fully agree with your statement.

Well, my point simply was that in my opinion, the difference between a decent midrange CD player (I would consider the Rega Apollo in that range) and the best CD players in the world will never be as big as the differences which can be found between various CD masterings.

In the concrete example - and I just made my comment since I saw the (funny to me) picture of the Abbey Road remaster in the new Rega player - no CD player in the world can make the AR remaster more enjoyable to me than the BT. No matter how much detail and musicality a CD player has, it cannot undo the damage that has been done with regards to reducing the dynamic range, or (in other cases) by applying noise reduction or having boosted EQ levels (smiley faced etc.).

That's all.

Of course, I would love to own this new player and I am sure it is very very good. It would be nice to have such a great player to go with my CD collection and the masterings I have picked out.

Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb this thread about this new Rega player.

 

I did not to sound inflamatory, although it probably came out like that.

I have to disagree here. If I only had enough money to buy a $500 CDP, that would not entitle me to call it high class. In other words, boundaries are not set individually, it is the marketplace that sets them.

I never really gave it much thought, but I will start with the obvious. $9k for a CD player is expensive and $1k is not in the middle.

And if you really want to know what I think about this subject, a CD player by itself is not enough to produce music. It is the whole package that does it and by that I mean a CD player, a power cord, a set of footers and a shelf. A minimum for this package would probably be around $1,5k + $500 + $120 + $300, which makes it around $2,5k. Give or take a few hundreds. This is where I believe middle class begins.

Let me just state again - one needs to spend $2,5k before they can say they have tasted what RBCD can do. But that's just me...

Goran

 

So what? I for one would not like my music taste to be enslaved by a cdp that can only play decent masterings with nice results.