REPRODUCED FROM HI-FICHOICE
recording and,withouteverrealy com prom ising on the technicalac uracyofwhatyou’re hearing, the two Rega units see m e stop analysing the perform ance and just sit back and enjoy it instead. Conclusion It’sthispleasure thatm arksthese devicesoutas som ething special.You can’tm easure enjoym ent and Idon’tim agine you speficaly seek to create it at a design brief level. Nevertheles , acros hoursoflistening to anything Ican think of,this pair m akes m usic an em otionaly pleasurable experience.You can reasonablyargue thatthese are m ore flexible and ‘m odern’Rega devicesyet, butthathasbeen achieved withoutaltering what the com pany hasalwaysdone so wel.The Elicit MK5 and Saturn MK3 are the perfect em bodim entof2022,butthey rem ain tim eles ly Regawhiletheydo so.
Digging outm yCD copyofThisNeverEnding Now byTheCham eleons,theSaturnM K3sim plydelights in how it handles this pared-back version of the band’s clas ics. The highlight is Swam p Thing; a world away from its stark eighties ancestorwith its warm and involving beauty. The Saturn M K3 is glorious ‘undigital’:a statem ent that m ight seem odd given its function,butone thatshould m ake com plete sense the m om entyou hearit.W ithout smoothing of or losing any aspect of the m usicianship,itavoids any sense ofproces ing or the slightly ‘etched’ presentation that some state-of-the-artsolutionscan deliver. The Rega is not som e soft and wooly relic, though.Switching to the USB inputand playing the startlingly dynamic Simmer by Hayley Wiliams revealsthattheSaturnM K3hassensationalbas .As welasanim pres ivelevelofout-and-outextension, it’sthetextureand controlthatitpos es esthattruly sets it apart. It’s this punch and a greater feelof three-dimensional space that alows it to dem onstrate an advantage overthe digitalinputs ontheam p.Youcanlistento thecoaxialinputofthe ElicitM K5 aldayand notonce feelshortchanged, butthe standalone digitalsource isan obviousstep forward from the veryfirstm om entyou hearit. Com bine the two and the results are sim ply outstanding. Listening to Sturgil Simpson‘s sensational Cutin’Gras Volum e 1 ,the Regaduo is efortles ly m usical in a way that eludes even considerably m ore expensive devices.You can use the powerofthe ElicitM K5 to setanylistening level you fancy (and Q Acoustic’s Concept 50 is a gloriously obliging partnerin aiding and abeting this behaviour)and then sim ply let ethering flow efortles ly. The gloriously tongue-in-cheek Long W hiteLine fiz leswithaltheenergypacked into the
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