Rega Valve Isis CD Player

Rega Valve Isis CD Player

Name: Rega Valve Isis CD Player
Brand: Rega
Price: 20000.00 NZD
Availability: InStock

$20,000.00

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The Rega Valve Isis CD Player is the ultimate expression of Rega’s commitment to musicality, engineering excellence, and analogue warmth in digital playback. Designed and hand-built in the UK, this reference-class player combines a high-precision CD mechanism and Wolfson WM8741 DAC with a bespoke valve-based analogue output stage, delivering an extraordinary fusion of detail, depth, and musical emotion.

Each unit is hand-assembled and individually tested to exacting standards, and ships in a protective flight case for added assurance. The Rega Valve Isis is more than a CD player—it's a celebration of high-fidelity audio for those who want the sonic texture and depth only valves can provide.

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Specifications

Wavelength: 780 nm
Digital Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz
Power Consumption: 46 W
Dimensions (W × H × D): 434 × 112 × 350 mm
Weight: 19.5 kg

The sound was elegant, self-controlled, polite

6 Moons

Valve version of Rega's reference Isis CDP

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.

Rega’s now legendary head electronics engineer Terry Bateman spent 10 years researching the concept of a CD player using valves in the output amplifier. Valves have been widely used in musical instrument and recording amplification from the 1950s 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.

Digital section

The digital section is blue printed and selected, with major improvements to the mechanism, optical amplifier, DSP core, PLL, master clock & motor power supplies. Another 10 separate power supply regulators are used in the digital circuit. The motor, user interface processor & display also have their own power supply. The digital stage also has its own 50 VA transformer again ensuring galvanic isolation. The mechanism is graded and matched to the servo circuits, to ensure the servo and optical amplifiers are working at their optimum point, improving error correction and playability.

Extra error correction

Previous chip-sets always made compromises on error correction. Formerly it was possible to have good jog resistance or better musical performance. The Rega chip-set allows optimum musical performance and optimised jog /vibration resistance.

Disc analysis

The valve Isis will analyse each disc on an individual basis. During the initialising period (rather like the engine management system on a modern car which optimises the engine settings to temperature, fuel quality etc.), the Isis will adjust itself to each disc in order to give optimal trouble free reading. For this reason the Isis will often play discs with marks or scratches that other players cannot read.

Who is this for?

The Rega Valve Isis is designed for serious CD collectors and high-end audiophiles who want a reference-level digital source with a distinctly musical, analogue-inspired presentation. It sits at the very top of Rega’s digital range and is aimed at listeners building no-compromise systems around transparency, scale, and long-term musical engagement.

This is a component for fully developed systems—typically paired with high-end amplification such as Rega’s own Osiris or Aethos—where its full resolution and tonal richness can be properly appreciated. It is not about convenience or versatility, but about extracting the maximum musical experience from Red Book CD.

Whether it was slow Clapton Blues, more aggressive Lee Hooker or totally raw Vaughan, the Rega always presented the music most accurately. From nice ‘n’ easy to fast & aggressive, it showed everything in a very orderly fashion. This didn’t lack in dynamics and both micro and macro expressions were more than satisfactory.