Welcome to the Solid State Audio website
Your n°1 source for high-end audio equipment, cables and loudspeaker systems.
Welcome to the Solid State Audio website Your n°1 source for high-end audio equipment, cables and loudspeaker systems. |
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A reasonably normal childhood was spent building electric guitars, flying model aeroplanes, playing the clarinet and breeding budgies. At fourteen, Roy's mum asked him if he wanted a television or a record player in the house. Roy begged for a record player. His mum bought a telly!
At eighteen years Roy built his first pair of loudspeakers in perfectly sealed cabinets. Not the first Rega product, but Roy was on his way. His interest in hi-fi evolved from a passion for music. 'Bliss' in those days was a live concert, a folk club, or any kind of record player. Then a flat mate demonstrated his hi-fi system: Garrard SP25 turntable, Sonotone 9TA cartridge, Rogers HG88 amplifier and Wharfedale speakers. Roy realised his record player had room for improvement. A Colaro deck turned up on a rubbish dump and after much adaptation became Roy's first hi-fi record deck. When a friend gave him an old Connoisseur the Collaro went back to the rubbish dump, and the modification began again. This turntable was reviewed in hi-fi Sound in 1972, as part of a series called Casebook, which examined readers hi-fi systems. In the early seventies the turntable was seen as such an unimportant part of the system that the reviewer assumed the excellent results must be due to the speakers. These were impossible to miss huge concrete affairs housing Super 8 drive units - but could hardly account for the sound quality of the whole system. The reviewer was puzzled. Roy was now working for Ford as a technical editor but spent most of his free time installing friend's hi-fi equipment and building loudspeakers to sell. He became a part time retailer and found he had to spend a ridiculous amount of time repairing new turntables before his conscience and common sense would allow him to sell them to others! Out of frustration and a strong feeling he could do better, the Planet turntable was born. Roy and a partner registered "Rega" (Tony RElph, Roy GAndy). In 1973 and for a couple of years Roy stayed at ford and made turntables in the evening, helped by his partners: mum (who agreed to help out for two weeks and stayed for fifteen years!) and a succession of lads. The first turntables were sold through Cosmocord in the UK and a year later under the Rega name in West Germany, Denmark and France.Roy was now able to leave Ford; he collected a redundancy check and promptly blew it on a factory in Rochford. Soon after the partner with Tony Relph split, Roy swapping his share of Rega. Terry Davies joined as Rega's financial administrator. The Rega products shown on our website are only a small selection of what's available, if you are interested in a Rega product other than those shown on our website: Mail Us |
© 2004-2012 Solid State Audio |
Rega Saturn |
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Rega Saturn , remote controlled, CD playerTwo parallel connected Wolfson WM8740 dual differential Digital to Analogue converters improving the dynamic range and linearity.
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Rega Isis |
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Rega ISIS , remote controlled, CD playerA product manufactured to the highest achievable quality inside and out, Rega's own unique CD technology, genuine black chrome lid and front facia, a custom solid anodised aluminium case weighing in at a notable 19kg ! We hope you enjoy this very special CD player; we have spent a very long time creating it, drawing on our many years of experience in specialist Hi-Fi manufacturing.One important design goal was to take the current output, with no internal amplification within the D to A converter, and convert this to an analogue voltage, using discrete class A operational amplifiers and filters. This circuit can then be optimised for sonic performance. (With most CD players the use of standard operational integrated circuits locks you into the sound of those particular integrated circuits, thus narrowing the scope for improvement). The class A current to voltage conversion amplifier evolved out of the development of the first stage of the Rega IOS MC amplifier. It shares identical demands of low noise, high drive capability and gain bandwidth required of the voltage to current amplifier Careful choice has been made for every component in the digital and the analogue signal path to ensure the integrity of the signal. The analogue and digital sections are bonded together using a substantial ground plane. It was found during the development of the player that adoption of RF ground plane techniques aided the sonic quality and therefore were included in the final design.Careful design of the PCB's ensures isolation of not just the digital and analogue sections, but also the motor, display and user interface processor. All sonically critical electrolytic capacitors have been by-passed with polypropylene or polyester film capacitors. In addition to this, large value electrolytic capacitors have also been by-passed with audio grade electrolytic capacitors.
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Rega Valve Isis |
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Rega ISIS Valve Version, remote controlled, CD playerValves have been widely used in musical instrument and recording amplification from the 1950's to the present day, therefore it made great sense to develop a valve based CD player to match that of the signal chain found in such applications.This approach kept the circuit straightforward, this is mainly because musical instrument amplification is not excessively hindered by some of the folklore surrounding certain aspects of valve audio design. He took the approach of combining the technical and sonic attributes of valves in a differential instrumentation amplifier circuit driven from differential output DAC with a passive LC filter.Careful choice of valves and the use of moderate levels of feedback keep the distortion at reasonable levels thus keeping the colouration to a minimum. The valve Isis became fully realised when he combined the valve project with the Wolfson high performance differential output WM8741 DAC along with the digital playback circuitry of its solid state stable mate.The valve Isis shares the same digital and USB sections as found in the solid state version however the analogue stage is valve based with passive filtering. This stage uses two military specification triple mica 5814A (ECC82/12AU7) triodes being driven by the revolutionary Wolfson WM8741 ultra high performance digital to analogue converter.The output buffer and transformer driver stage uses two ECC88 (6DJ8/6922) triodes. This, like its solid-state stable mate, is of an un-orthodox design. The design goal with this player was to keep away from the normal design approach of "lets run it through a valve to make it sound warm", but take advantage of industrial valve circuits to make an articulate and competent valve based CD player. Careful choice has been made for every component in the digital and the analogue signal path to ensure the integrity of the signal.Careful design of the PCB's ensures isolation of not just the digital and analogue sections, but also the motor, display and user interface processor. All sonically critical electrolytic capacitors have been by-passed with polypropylene or polyester film capacitors. In addition to this, large value electrolytic capacitors have also been by-passed with audio grade electrolytic capacitors. Power supply impedances in the digital to analogue converter are kept very low by the use of solid polymer capacitors. All power supplies utilise custom Rega K-Power smoothing capacitors, and fast diodes have been used throughout in power supply rectification.The Isis uses enhanced and optimised control code for the control of the CD processor and user display; this will speed up the initialisation process by means of a tighter control interface between the user micro and CD processor.The differential output of the digital to analogue converter drives a valve differential (operational) amplifier, with a very modest amount of feedback to stabilise the operating conditions. The 5814A based differential amplifier, with a solid-state current generator in its tail, takes full advantage of the differential output from the digital to analogue converter. This is followed by a passive Butterworth second order LC filter. Finally, this signal is buffered using a low anode resistance ECC88 to drive the output and balancing transformer.In design it was felt that unnecessarily high levels of THD would unduly overwhelm the qualities of the digital stage of the Isis. The overall THD is typically 0.06% being prominently even order, where the 2nd harmonic predominates. This will give the sonic dynamics of the valves without dominating the sonic qualities of the digital section.After many hours of tube rolling we found the 5814A differential amplifier position was best on the grounds of micro-phonics, reliable operation and sonic qualities. Both the HT & LT power supplies are fully regulated and use the same power supply parts as used in the solid state Isis. Like the solid-state analogue stage valve Isis has it's own dedicated 50VA mains transformer, ensuring galvanic isolation between the digital and analogue sections of the player.The Isis has an isolated balanced output, and in keeping with the spirit of the valve circuit topology we have opted to use a transformer in this position. This balancing transformer is made to the same exacting standards to that found in the IOS MC amplifier.
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Rega DAC |
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Rega DAC, Digital to Analogue ConverterMaximise the potential of your digital audio.The Rega DAC is a 16/20/24-bit at 32kHz to 192kHz digital to analogue converter incorporating an enhanced version of the Rega designed circuit. Developed to be simple to set up and use, the Rega DAC is designed to optimise performance from any two channel PCM digital audio source such as a CD player PC or streaming device.
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