Rega Aura

Make sure you set antiskating to 0 when adjusting VTF, but yes, even then it gets pulled outwards a bit and is nerve wrecking. And even in the best of cases, forget about exact setting. :+1: to scales

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I watched a utube vid’ comparing the P8 and P10, I’m seriously tempted even tho’ my P8 is under 2 years old. I have a pair of Graham LS6f’s, seriously good loudspeakers made down here in Devon, beautifully natural sounding and agile floorstanders, if you have anyone stocking them near you consider giving them an audition.

Thanks, surprisingly there is a dealer right outside of Berlin, the only one in Germany. (I hope “Audio Offensive” is not an omen!). Will try to have a listen, first need to save up …

When I got the P8, the dealer hinted that I really wanted the P10, but they are always very respectful of my limits (which is great), and it was indeed the more sensible one for my system. Nobody knew what would happen within the next months; crazy when you look back at life in February of 2020.

I made the decision to switch without even listening to the P10, it just seemed logical. And the prettier PSU :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I was quite surprised at the difference and as usual my dealer was proved right. It’s quite a bit more expensive, so try to audition if you can; I can imagine that, depending on music and preference, some people might find it a bit similar to the 282 vs 252 comparison. (And I love my 252, so …)

I upgraded last year from a 202/200 to 282/250DR, I found the difference between the 202 and 282 jaw dropping, I can only begin to imagine how the 252 sounds, but with a supercap it’s a big chunk of dosh, whereas the P10 is in reach!
I hope you get to listen to the Grahams, as an endorsement the guy in the Hifi dealer where I go bought a pair, he’d listened to loads of stuff and said nothing came close at that price point (just over £3K here), but speakers are a very personal thing. The front firing ports are great for easy placement, sometimes I just lie on the floor to soak up all those lovely low frequencies🥴

I love the 252, but some find it too polite and laid back, preferring the more excited nature of the 282. I never heard a 282, but the comparison reminds me a bit of P10 (252) vs P8 (282). I think it all gels wonderfully.

Ha, the lying on the floor reminds me of a concert (remember those?) of SunnO))) in Berlin. Not everone’s cup of tea, they are making a massive drone guitar noise. It was in an old theater room with wooden auditorium, people were lying on the floor everywhere and the whole thing shook.

For illustration, the technical request sheet SunnO))) provides to the venue :slight_smile:

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Haha, brilliant! I think the last live band I saw was The Specials on their 40th anniversary tour in ‘19, I saw them twice in their heyday when I was a student and have loved their music since, Terry Hall had to stop the gig half way through and issue a warning to some of the aged 60’s ‘rude boys’ in the audience who were misbehaving!

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Glad you liked that! :slight_smile: Loving the Specials too, in fact I had a vinyl record in hand today from my collection

Well I have been demoing the Aura for about 11 days now. This one has been on 24/7 and gradually getting better and better. My conclusion is that the big area of improvement over the Aria is that the voices and instruments have a richer sound.

In fact apart from more development in that area can’t imagine much further development. I say this because when I last tried it soon after its launch the soundstage became massively better, but it wasn’t very good before and neither was the bass compared with now. So a 552/500 sorted that out, but it didn’t do the richness of the voices and notes.

Quite awesome now. If I take the plunge I will have to get up from the chair more! However, it’s got the wow that good digital delivers now.

Phil

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Interesting, a few years ago my dealer invited me to a Naim streaming event, massive focal speakers and the rest. I went along out of curiosity, I’m very much old school, if I can’t get it on vinyl I’ll grudgingly buy the CD (which I can’t even play in the new car I’ve ordered as it doesn’t have a CD player😬) The streaming set ups sounded great, but lacked something for me perhaps too clinical a sound?
Anyway, I’m loving the Aura and it keeps getting better and even though my P8 is only 2 years old I think a P10 is seriously on the cards!

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I suppose that it is human nature for us to claim that the decisions that we make are good ones, but…
…I am lucky enough to have a P10 + Apheta 3 + Aura, this combination is sublime. I leave my Aura and TT power supplies on.
Big smile on my face when listening to music!!!

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Dvorak Symphony 8

I played my vinyl against the CD rip. Guess what the vinyl was better particularly for the brass!

Phil

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I’ve had the Aura on demo from my dealer for a few weeks now, this being partnered with my P10 & Apheta 3. I found the Aura initially impressive but overall I felt disappointed with it. The SQ on the whole is very variable, which I assume depends on the vinyl production. With lesser quality recordings, I’ve found the soundstage flat and lean at best.

Also the build quality of the Aura isn’t great. I’ve two units on demo now. The first I returned with a faulty gain switch. With the unit I have now the power switch is permanently stuck on. I have to faff around with it to power off. Really poor quality control and not worthy of a £4K price tag IMO.

I’ve since boxed it back up ready to return to my dealer. In the meantime, my P10 sits on Fraim as an expensive ornament :man_shrugging:t2:

Look at the Gold Note PH 10 if you haven’t already.

Thats a shame on the quality front, but the difference you are experiencing on the vinyl front is down to cartridge, this gets even worse if you go for the aphelion2.
My experience with exactly the same set up as you, was the P10 is fantastic at giving you all the details, running through the aura, nothing is lost, the problem is you may find that you are just getting to much detail and then when you play some vinyl that is just not so well presented, this gets shown up very easily and like i said the aphelion2 just makes the same situation even worse.
I went down the different cartridge rabbit hole, which then shot me down a different turntable hole, but the aura has stayed, as it is a mighty fine phono stage and is not the cause of the problem you are experiencing is my view.

I haven’t turned mine off in two weeks. It took 11 days to really deliver. I have to return it by Saturday for Rega to send to someone else. I will put the Aria back and decide. My report was posted a few days ago.

Phil

I guess that the ‘revealingness’ of the Aura will clearly show up poor recordings. All I can say is that it works extremely well for me (Apheta 3 at 1.9g, bias setting by
unmodulated groove method --》then by ear, 200R, Rega’s reccomended capacitance)

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I’m using a Superline and funnily have also have arrived by ear at Naim’s 220R plug, although Rega recommend 100 ohms, and the Rega-recommended 1000 pF capacitance

And also using 1.9g

Great minds think alike…or, at least, they think alike!

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I have to warn you that my mind made be spend 50 euros on a test LP only to arrive at the same bias setting as if I had simply followed Rega’s advice, and > 200 on a Rega scale that has the same result as the 5 euro one from Amazon.

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Indeed…I have one of those ‘made in China’ digital scales…seems to work well (gives the same result as my ancient Shure balance guage). I bet we could all write the same book about our neuroses in trying to get THE best possible from our systems!

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