Doubt very much you would be unhappy. The adjectives What Hifi uses to describe the Aura read like warnings to me.
Reread that review BB,
How do you mean?
Thanks.
The Rega is a lot more expensive than the Stellar, want to make a good decision.
Given my Nuwave Phono Converters started putting a hiss through my speakers, the question might be more relevant for me, will be a long while before I can pick one up though.
Ah well.
The most obvious thing to do, the only way for you to be fully certain, would be to borrow both and make up your own mind. Other than that it’s all speculation and nebulous opinion.
I, too, would like to listen to the PS A phono amplifier but that isn’t possible unless I buy one because there isn’t any dealerships in Scotland. And I would have to arrange through Paul as I now have “no truck” with the UK distributor.
But I do own the Aura and the new Planar 10. I have used the Aura for several months now so it was well burned-in when I took delivery of the new Planar 10. I have owned and used many phono amplifiers over the years, including Rega’s previous reference phono amplifier the IOS. The Aura is an outstanding phono amplifier, jaw on the floor performance! ‘I have several phono amplifiers - including the Rega Aria’.
I haven’t read any of the reviews on the Aura or the Stellar. I never read reviews before I hear a product and seldom after I’ve bought a product. But that’s just me. Opinions are meaningless to me. It’s what I hear, feel, the engagement, the full-on experience from a product - not someone’s opinion all dressed up in purple prose to sell magazines. I realise all of this doesn’t answer your question but You will never know until you get both phono amplifiers together side by side!
4 Likes
Totally agree Dirk, you need to hear for yourself to be sure.
Scotland based here too (cool) and I heard the Aura at Loud n Clear Glasgow and it was pretty epic sounding.
Bought my P10 there on the spot after hearing it.
Bought my PS Audio gear from Igloo Audio in London, further down the road might give him a call and see what he thinks.
Given me good advice in the past, a good guy.
Might make sense to wait and get the Aura, Rega synergy and all that.
Just need to sort out my hissy Nuwave Phono meantime.
Have it XLR’d out to my BHK Pre, might try the i2s output into my DS Dac, see if hiss is coming from analogue stage, or if it’s something deeper in the Unit that’s wrong.
Thanks mate.
Gaz.
“If you’re looking for an insightful and exciting high-end phono stage, this Rega is a brilliant place to start”
“Terrific clarity and detail resolution”
“Clean, crisp, articulate”…“Sparkle”…“exciting”
If you are NOT looking for these qualities, and I’m not, for the most part - it would possibly be a good one to pass up. And why would it be a place to START rather than being a best, last-one-you’ll-ever-need at that price? Or perhaps that is just intended as a figure of speech.
The choice of descriptors are not things I’m looking for in a phono stage. They sound more like words a reviewer is using to politely emphasize in a positive way that the things that stick out on this device are things that may lean away from naturalness of presentation. They are terms I associate with “hifi” sound rather than the sound of actual music.
But all this is just my impression reading a review - I’ve not heard it. Have owned two Rega TT’s and a CD player. Like their stuff, and those are not descriptors I would normally associate with their sound.
US and UK English are the same language but they utilize different way of communication.
I have never heard REGA but do like their steadfast development and loyalty to their technical concept.
What REGA does offer is system synergy as everything from turntable, through cartridge, tonearm, motor and drive till amplifiers and speakers is developed and produced in house ans must be perfectly matched.
Thanks BB,
know what you meant now.
I’ve heard it and it sounds good, but obviously would prefer to spend less money if I could get the same involvement with my LPs with the Stellar.
I will say, that if those sorts of descriptors are appealing, the Stellar is not lacking in that regard. Frankly, vs. the beta, I think the finished product leans a bit more that way than I like. You could also argue that it is simply revealing the nature of my Soundsmith cart. Whatever.
The key is that, as Mikey points out, it gets the midrange right. Something many much more costly pres do not.
1 Like
And the midrange is where the music is and our ears are most sensitive. Midrange is king.
2 Likes
27 posts were merged into an existing topic: Turntables
Quick question for PSA @DarrenMyers, rega suggested capacitance be set to 1000pF, however the SPP doesn’t have capacitance setting, how would thos affect sound quality, if any? What is the factory capacitance setting for the SPP. Thanks
On the MM it is 100pF, plus your cables.
Thanks BB, do you know what is the MC spec? I didn’t see that listed in the spec sheet. Also what’s the sonic characteristic changes between different capacitance settings?
They vary from cartridge to cartridge. Each cartridge has a recommended setting from the manufacturer and as you can guess, they have some idea what they are talking about. Changing the settings does affect the sound, and some people find they prefer a different setting than the recommended. You won’t hurt anything by trying different settings.
I was at a friends house and we tried different settings on his SPP. I believe you can select 1000pF on the back of the SPP on the moving coil side. Someone who actually owns one should know better. I don’t.
Sorry - Settled My Brains For a Long WInter’s Nap. I will bounce it off Darren this AM (still early here) re: the pF values on the MC side. It is both a weekend and a holiday here.
It is fine to run the Gain setting on the SPP higher than the cart’s spec for what I would call a “fuller-ish” sound, much like what you would associate with raising the gain at any point in a given audio chain (lowering the level of a subsequent stage to compensate). For example, the cart aangen and I have is Medium Gain, but on certain types of music, the High setting can be subjectively better.
I meant to add that I guess I’m maybe a bit confused @falling_leaves, if when you refer to capacitance, you are actually referring to that, or what aangen refers to - the resistance settings (in ohms) that are possible on the SPP.
The manual mentions the 100pF capacitance of the MM input, as MM carts can be more reactive to the input capacitance, and the way to make it higher is with additional capacitance of a given cable from TT to Phono Pre. Not sure if it is also 100pF on the MC input or not, and how much that matters.
For the resistance settings, as with most Phono pres, the MM is set at 47k ohm, and for MC, the SPP has a broad range of settings via presets on the remote buttons, including “Custom”, which enables the pots on the back at the MC inputs, which vary between 0 and 1,000 ohm, if memory serves.
To take the Soundsmith MIMC Star as an example again, as I recall it wants 500 ohm, and I’m running it Custom, with the pots at around 2 o’clock, which is prolly somewhere around 700. THEN, there are the three Gain settings to choose from. This cart wants Medium, but sometimes I run it on High.
I meant capacitance, since Rega is recommending 1000pF for their MC carts, I like to learn more about the effect of not having adjustable capacitance on SPP do to sound? Can we use capacitance plugs to match recommended spec?
I’m sorta guessing that the 1kpF is a maximum rather than a minimum or a specific requirement, as the tendency seems to be “the lower the better”. But we can just wait to hear from Darren.
Moving coil cartridges have much lower amounts of inductance, hence the low output, compared to MMs. This means that at high frequency they present a fairly low source impedance and therefore the capacitance is not as critical as a MM.
The large role of capacitance with MCs is filtering RFI out so that it doesn’t get into the phonostage and intermodulate. The SPP has around 100pF of input capacitance on the MC input which I believe is on the lower side compared to other stages. This was a result of listening to Ortofon and Lyra MCs and the sound simply improved when I reduced the capacitance. After a few discussions with Michael Fremer, he seemed to also favor minimizing loading capacitance with low output MCs.
In my experience, a lot of the recommended MC loading capacitances are based on a bandwidth calculation and is more about RFI rejection than frequency response or SQ. You can always increase capacitance using a highly capacitive cable between the turntable and phono pre but I suspect the sonic differences will be minimal.
4 Likes