|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
174.254.160.184
In Reply to: RE: Rega Saturn Owners: How Has Sound Changed Over Breaking In Period? posted by Realitytunnel on April 20, 2012 at 00:39:04
It does eventually settle in and get more balanced. I notice that even leaving the unit on all the time, it sounds better after an hour of playing. Not sure why. Female vocals have improved. I wish there was a bit more air and ease on top, though. I'm happy with it now, though perhaps not ecstatic.
Follow Ups:
The one I have is a second hand model a couple of years old, so is fully burned in. Personally I leave my system permanently switched on, it's essential for best sound quality and protects the components from current surge when switching on and off ;)
I left it on overnight and had a listen this morning- sounded even thinner to my ears. Oh dear. I had high hopes, and probably if I handn't had such a superb player before I'd be ecstatic! It definitely retrieves amazing amounts of detail, but somehow lacks the raw enjoyment of the VRDS I had. Mind you, it was heavily modded, so that's a bit unfair to the Saturn in some ways, BUT it did have that signature sound out of the box, the mods just have more of it.
Who knows how the Saturn would respond to mods? If I can't fix the VRDS, we'll find out, or I might use it as a transport with a very HQ DAC- seems like its strength is getting the bits off the disc, not neccessarily the analogue output stage (or possibly conversion?).
Even with a two-year old unit, the Saturn will change. If it has been left off for any significant period of time, it needs to resettle in when turned back on. It has three power supplies and each work in at a different rate. After turning the unit on, it went from really good to good to not so good to very Iood to really good, and sometimes going back until it settled in. The body of the sound will definitely fill in. I promise. Thin body is not an issue any more. It took literally hundreds of hours of not just being on, but playing to get it there, and the sound quality would go up and down before it got there.
Have LOTS of patience with this one. It may or may not ultimately be better than the modded TEAC, but it will be better than it is now.
OK, that's good to know! I'll persevere... ;)
According to the dealer, the more the power supplies, the longer the break-in. I had an Audiomat DAC that took almost 700 hours to break in.
:-o jeepers, I only have it on approval for two weeks!
What was the expensive digital system you had before, btw? I've always had a soft-spot for Meridian kit, but haven't heard the newer stuff, and I find it's overpriced now they've lost their more 'budget' CD players- if you could ever call them that!
:-)
Hi,
I just finished the audition period. I ended up sending the Saturn back, unfortunately. It was a close call as the Saturn definitely does many things right, but it just lacked a natural sense of dynamics, a bit of 'slam' and 'attack', not in a forward way, but just in a way which is there in live music?
The Saturn is a lovely player, and I mean that in all respects, it's refined and sweet sounding, but real live music isn't always like that, and nor was the player I'm used to, so it just didn't send shivers down my spine at the right moments. I felt it was always holding something back and needed to just let it's hair down!
That's all highly subjective of course, and is only in my system, so must be taken as such. It also sounds over critical, whereas, as I say, it was doing most things right, and had the most unforced detail and transparency I've ever heard from any digital source, so wonderful in many ways, just not quite right for my tastes.
I'm going to try a TeddyDAC, which I keep hearing good things about, and probably a Rega DAC, maybe with an Apollo as a transport (I get the feeling it might be the output stage which lets the Saturn down a bit, I think the disc-reading/data retrieval is probably nigh-on perfect, so might be very very good as a transport...
Cheers,
James
Did I reply to this yet? I don't remember.
In case I didn't, I had a CEC TL51X transport and Audiomat Tempo DAC.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: