Back in the day (c. late 1990s), I owned a Rega Planet CD player and enjoyed its smooth somewhat dark sound, which beat the pants off the crispy edginess found in the output of many a CD player of the time.
I am heartened to see that Rega, still known for their turntables, remaining in the digital game and in typical Rega fashion taking their sweet time keeping up with digital trends.
In addition to spinning discs, you can send your file-based music through the Saturn’s digital inputs, which support PCM resolutions up to 24-bit/192kHz (via asynchronous USB). The digital circuit includes a high performance PLL digital interface receiver, isolated digital inputs and high performance power supply architecture in the DAC circuitry. A pair of Wolfson WM8742 ICs take care of D to A conversion.
For digital fiddlers, the Saturn MK3 offers digital filter options as follows:
Filter settings 1 – 5 (@ low sample rates 32/44.1/48k)
1. Linear phase half-band filter
2. Minimum phase soft-knee filter
3. Minimum phase half-band filter
4. Linear phase apodising filter
5. Minimum phase apodising filter
Filter settings 1 – 5 (@ medium & high sample rates 88.2/96 & 176.4/192k)
1. Linear phase soft-knee filter
2. Minimum phase soft-knee filter
3. Linear phase brickwall filter
4. Minimum phase apodising filter
5. Linear phase apodising filter
Filter to taste.
US pricing has not been specified, but expect the Saturn MK3 to come in somewhere north of $2000 with units hitting the market imminently.
Company Website: Rega