Rega Saturn-r CD-R issues

[Belerofonus]

hi Guys, question to Rega Saturn-r cd player owners, do you have issues with burned CD-R discs? I have saturn about a year and from start i have playback issues. After the purchase, original CDs and CD-Rs not played properly, skipping, reading errors etc. After service repair of pickup laser, original CDs plays flawlessly but CD-R still skipping, after disc loading display says Disc error or empty disc. When i turn of and on again disc is loaded properly but still skipping (mostly from middle to end of the disc) I've try many manufactures (tayio yuden, verbatim, media range etc.) I'm burning cd's with lowest speed possible but without improving. With my Marantz CD player discs works properly. Anyone have same issues? I'm really pissed....I love sound of Saturn but 2000 pounds deck can't play CD-R properly? embarrassing :-(

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

Send it back in again, together with some CD-Rs that play fine on the Marantz but not on the Saturn R, in order to receive a proper repair service.

 

[English Invader]

hi Guys, question to Rega Saturn-r cd player owners, do you have issues with burned CD-R discs? I have saturn about a year and from start i have playback issues. After the purchase, original CDs and CD-Rs not played properly, skipping, reading errors etc. After service repair of pickup laser, original CDs plays flawlessly but CD-R still skipping, after disc loading display says Disc error or empty disc. When i turn of and on again disc is loaded properly but still skipping (mostly from middle to end of the disc) I've try many manufactures (tayio yuden, verbatim, media range etc.) I'm burning cd's with lowest speed possible but without improving. With my Marantz CD player discs works properly. Anyone have same issues? I'm really pissed....I love sound of Saturn but 2000 pounds deck can't play CD-R properly? embarrassing :-(

Quite frankly, I think this is appalling. For two grand, you should be able to play any disc no questions asked and you certainly shouldn't have to send it in for service within a year of buying.

From what I've heard, diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly with CD players so there is no reason to spend that kind of money on one in the first place. Original CD playback for 99% of discs and no CD-R support is what I get from the 33 year old Technics SL-P200 that I bought for £50 on eBay. A Panasonic or Sony Blu-Ray player can be bought from your local supermarket for around the same price and these will take pretty much any disc you throw at them.

 

[gibbsy]

From what I've heard

Are you referring to what you've heard from other people or have experienced players from various price points. You have to qualify that remark. I've currently got two UD players and two stereo SACD players in my possession and not long sold another redbook player. Everyone is different, even two from the manufacturer that shared the same DAC.

Anyone can be unlucky and have a high end product fail for whatever reason. Rega do have a robust warranty in place and the Saturn has a life time warranty.

 

[English Invader]

Are you referring to what you've heard from other people or have experienced players from various price points. You have to qualify that remark.

It's the former.

 

[Belerofonus]

Quite frankly, I think this is appalling. For two grand, you should be able to play any disc no questions asked and you certainly shouldn't have to send it in for service within a year of buying.

From what I've heard, diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly with CD players so there is no reason to spend that kind of money on one in the first place. Original CD playback for 99% of discs and no CD-R support is what I get from the 33 year old Technics SL-P200 that I bought for £50 on eBay. A Panasonic or Sony Blu-Ray player can be bought from your local supermarket for around the same price and these will take pretty much any disc you throw at them.

Yeah sure you're right, but one thing is important, in terms of sound and presentation, Rega beat almost everything what i heard (roksan was pretty close in competition).

 

[gibbsy]

It's the former.

Then you don't have any hands on comparisons. Don't believe all you read.

 

[Belerofonus]

Then you don't have any hands on comparisons. Don't believe all you read.

Amen to that

 

[JBA6]

Hi, A few thoughts spring to mind:

As far as I can see Rega don’t claim that the Saturn-R is compatible with anything other than regular commercial audio CDs. Did whoever it was you bought it from claim it was compatible with CD-Rs and if so did they specify any brand of disc in particular?

What CD writer are you using to burn the discs? I would always aim to use a desktop drive for this purpose, with Plextor being my brand of choice. However the Yamaha CRW-F1 would be an excellent alternative, if you could find one.

Finally what software are you using to burn the discs? Assuming you are using a Windows PC, my choice would be the Burner section of EZ CD Audio Converter (which is also an excellent CD ripper) and I would feed it 44.1KHz FLAC or WAV files :

Music Converter with Professional Audio Quality | Convert Music to/from MP3, FLAC, M4A, AAC, Opus, DSD, WAV, OGG, and more audio formats. Secure CD Ripper converts CDs to FLAC, MP3, and more audio formats.

EZ CD Audio Converter is music conversion software that converts audio files to/from FLAC, MP3, WAV, DSD, AAC, M4A, Opus, and many more audio file formats and includes secure CD ripper that rips audio CDs in bit perfect quality audio. It also burns audio CDs and MP3 CDs and can be used as a...

www.poikosoft.com

JB

 

[JBA6]

A quick PS to my post immediately above. It seems I should have been more precise in my description for a desktop drive because lots of slimline portable drives are apparently called desktop drives by their manufacturers. What I should have said was something like "an external drive incorporating a 5.25 inch CD burner". Of course I realise that older PCs frequently included a 5.25 inch CD or DVD or BD burner and one of these might be satisfactory for burning music CDs. Not many modern PCs or laptops include an optical drive so I've now got an external 5.25 inch Asus drive to do my CD and DVD burning plus CD and DVD ripping.

JB

 

[Belerofonus]

Hi, A few thoughts spring to mind:

As far as I can see Rega don’t claim that the Saturn-R is compatible with anything other than regular commercial audio CDs. Did whoever it was you bought it from claim it was compatible with CD-Rs and if so did they specify any brand of disc in particular?

What CD writer are you using to burn the discs? I would always aim to use a desktop drive for this purpose, with Plextor being my brand of choice. However the Yamaha CRW-F1 would be an excellent alternative, if you could find one.

Finally what software are you using to burn the discs? Assuming you are using a Windows PC, my choice would be the Burner section of EZ CD Audio Converter (which is also an excellent CD ripper) and I would feed it 44.1KHz FLAC or WAV files :

Music Converter with Professional Audio Quality | Convert Music to/from MP3, FLAC, M4A, AAC, Opus, DSD, WAV, OGG, and more audio formats. Secure CD Ripper converts CDs to FLAC, MP3, and more audio formats.

EZ CD Audio Converter is music conversion software that converts audio files to/from FLAC, MP3, WAV, DSD, AAC, M4A, Opus, and many more audio file formats and includes secure CD ripper that rips audio CDs in bit perfect quality audio. It also burns audio CDs and MP3 CDs and can be used as a...

www.poikosoft.com

JB

HI, so nowhere on rega site, not even in manual for Saturn Player is specified what type of disc is supported. Commercial audio CD are natural thing. When player start skipping cd-r and original cd's i contacted official service from distributor and Rega answers " burned cd are supported, but we recommended burn slowest speed possible" no statement about cd brand etc. In my case i can burn only 16X drive wont let me slower. I'm using Easy cd extractor, cdburnerXp, ashampoo burning studio.
My primary cd brand is Tayio Yuden, then Verbatim, Media Range even trash cd from supermarket. 50% of all burned disc are good rest is with skipping or the player wont read them at all.
My cd burner is internal Samsung Bluray/DVD/CD combo model SH-B123L.

Plextor is great brand but today their prices for used drives are expensive with no guarantee of functionality with my player. I guess i have to say goodbye to Rega and buy another player. Which is sad because i love the sound of Rega.

 

[JBA6]

I agree I think it's unlikely the Rega will ever work reliably with CD-Rs. An alternative you might like to consider when funds permit is the Arcam CDS50 which according ot it's user manual is compatible with standard audio CDs, CD-R, CD-RW and SACD discs. It can also playback all of the following file formats from disc, USB and network:

FLAC	up to 24 bit/192kHz
WAV	up to 24 bit/192kHz
AAC	up to 24 bit/96kHz
AIFF	up to 24 bit/192kHz
OGG	up to 24 bit/192kHz
MP3	up to 320kbps/48kHz
WMA	up to 192kbps/48kHz

Arcam CD players have an excellent reputation for sound quality, certainly the couple of Arcam Solo players I've owned in the past were very good in this respect.

JB

 

[Belerofonus]

I agree I think it's unlikely the Rega will ever work reliably with CD-Rs. An alternative you might like to consider when funds permit is the Arcam CDS50 which according ot it's user manual is compatible with standard audio CDs, CD-R, CD-RW and SACD discs. It can also playback all of the following file formats from disc, USB and network:

FLAC	up to 24 bit/192kHz
WAV	up to 24 bit/192kHz
AAC	up to 24 bit/96kHz
AIFF	up to 24 bit/192kHz
OGG	up to 24 bit/192kHz
MP3	up to 320kbps/48kHz
WMA	up to 192kbps/48kHz

Arcam CD players have an excellent reputation for sound quality, certainly the couple of Arcam Solo players I've owned in the past were very good in this respect.

JB

I think that too, even if they claim opposite. I heard Arcam, it was on my demo list. Nice unit, but against Roksan Caspian M2 was average

 

[gibbsy]

The Denon DCD 2500 NE is another contender. Built like a tank. Will play SACD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW. Best disc spinner I've ever owned and I've had a few.

DCD-2500NE | Premium Super Audio CD Player - Denon

 

[Belerofonus]

The Denon DCD 2500 NE is another contender. Built like a tank. Will play SACD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW. Best disc spinner I've ever owned and I've had a few.

DCD-2500NE | Premium Super Audio CD Player - Denon

Thank you for suggest, i have denon bluray player astonishing player. Denon really can build a tank devices

 

[JBA6]

A final comment - I would have expected your Samsung BD drive to be satisfactory for burning audio CDs (I currently use Maxell 700MB CD-Rs), while from the software you list I also have Ashampoo Burning Studio (2020) and regularly use it for burning data CDs, data DVDs (mostly for Windows 10 installs). I don't remember using it as a music CD burner as I've had a full registered copy of EZ CD Audio Converter for many years so have always used that for audio CDs. My current favourite program for CD ripping is Sony Music Center which uses the usually accurate Gracenote from which to download an album's metadata and artwork.

JB

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

Given the commercial burn-to-order offerings of licensed material from larger companies (including Amazon, Arkiv and Presto), and the use of CD-R by a range of "smaller" labels, designing a player to be unable to handle CD-R would be a major problem for that manufacturer.

I still recommend sending the Saturn-R plus a selection of problem CD-Rs in for servicing. If they return it "CD-R is not supported", at least we'll have a confirmation in place of speculation.

 

[Belerofonus]

Given the commercial burn-to-order offerings of licensed material from larger companies (including Amazon, Arkiv and Presto), and the use of CD-R by a range of "smaller" labels, designing a player to be unable to handle CD-R would be a major problem for that manufacturer.

I still recommend sending the Saturn-R plus a selection of problem CD-Rs in for servicing. If they return it "CD-R is not supported", at least we'll have a confirmation in place of speculation.

Today i contacted rega service man, i'm curious what next. As you wrote, i have almost 500 pearl Jam official bootlegs and most of them are Commercial CD-R so cd player must read them