Audio Dropping Out on Rega Apollo and Saturn

Fillmoor's comments regarding the Saturn match mine exactly. I typically play a disc from beginning to end without any skipping back and forth, which probably translates to one initialization error in 15-20 discs. Opening the top, rotating the disc a bit and closing usually works; only twice have I needed to turn the machine on/off to reset the process. I'm glad that Fillmoor explained what I have been suspecting, which halps me try to overlook the odd annoyance and just listen to the music.

Wkass:

Occasionally, My Saturn does drop out the audio. It may occur intermittently several times and either correct itself or drop out altogether. Although rarely, this has occurred on discs which had minor a minor scratch, and also on discs which needed a cleaning. The scratched discs could not be fixed, but cleaning the others corrected the problem. NOTE: The discs (evidently) in need of a cleaning had been cleaned two months prior and did not appear to be dirty at the time of the audio drop-out.

My bottom line: The Saturn is a bit finicky at times, but the musical delivery is fine enough to induce me to overlook the occasional glitch. Hope this helps.

In my case, I had trouble duplicating any specific problem, which made me wonder if the problem was user error or player related. Only a CD with a healthy scratch would act up the same way twice. All told, I have experienced probably 15 different incidents in 8 months of ownership, and some of them I do think were caused by user error. For me, I was glad to know that my machine wasn't defective; the commonly experienced minor glitches were testimony that my machine was no different from the others. It may seem strange, but I find comfort in that. Below are the types of things I experienced, which I hope will clarify.

-Disc would not initialize. I would sometime raise the lid while the disc was still spinning and trying to initialize, which , I think confused the initialzation program. Yes, I was hasty in some cases and did not wait the full 12 recommended seconds. I have since learned to push stop, lift the lid, rotate the disc 1/4 turn, then continue. Since I have done this, I have experienced only 1 problem which caused me to turn the player off then on to rectify the misbehavior.

-Dirty disc skipping/repeating/stopping. After cleaning the discs, I have experienced this problem only twice. After a second cleaning, the problem disappeared.

-Scratched disc skipping. Cleaning the discs helped a bit, but the Saturn does not like scratched CDs. No fix.

I don't jockey back and forth among tracks very often, but I do it a small amount on some pop stuff. I cannot truthfully remember any time where this caused a problem, but I can certainly see how this might confuse the software or cause some of the reported problems.

I hope that this helps those looking for a more detailed accounting. In the last 3 months (since I changed my user operation), I have experienced only 1 of these minor glitches. I call them 'minor' because I'm an audiophile from the older days who has put up with soooo much in the vinyl realm that it makes the CD world seem like a breeze. I have been in the company of other CDP's which have numerous problems relating to auto slide trays, and that is one issue the Saturn will never experience. This is a great player which can be occasionally finicky, but always enjoyable. I ain't gettin' rid of her!