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Planetary mode

Rega updates the Planet
By Michael Jones

February 2001

Rega Planet 2000 CD player. $1600

While the world of hi-fi is in constant change, there are some things you can always count on: a constant flow of new speakers, or people declaring that it's impossible to hear differences between amplifiers or CD players. And one more thing: that hi-fi components from Rega Research will be well engineered, high performance and, well, a little different from the norm.

So it is with the new Rega Planet 2000 CD player. The 2000 replaces Rega's first CD player, the Planet, which was very well received a couple of years back.

While the original Planet had a very idiosyncratic look and styling, the 2000 looks a bit more normal. But not too much!

The 2000 is housed in Rega's custom built extruded aluminium case, common among all of the recent Rega releases. This look gained positive noises from visitors to my home.

The most striking factor of the Planet 2000 is that it is a top-loading CD player. Instead of a disc drawer at the front of the player, the 2000 has a hinged lid that opens upwards.

This is more than just a style affectation. The centre piece of the lid becomes part of the CD mechanism, clamping and spinning around with the disc. But be careful - you can't place anything on the lid, plus the spinning centre may be attractive to inquisitive small fingers.

The front of the Rega Planet 2000 is very simple. There's an power button and four transport buttons (play, stop, track forward, track back). Like the previous player, the buttons really are a bit small for grown-up fingers.

In the centre is a display, showing the tracks playing, along with a "music calendar" displaying all of the tracks on the CD. I found the lighting in the display to be a particularly garish red.

Around the back are audio outputs, along with both coaxial and optical digital outputs. The New Zealand importer has brought in the Planet 2000 without the remote control, to keep costs down. A Rega system remote control (which will work a complete Rega hi-fi system) is available as an add-on,

The sound of Planets
The Planet 2000 is an excellent CD player, building on the strengths of the original and surpassing them.

While CD players measure flat, tonally they can be all over the place (with some cheaper models in particular sounding bright). The Planet 2000 has a flat, natural tonal balance, which nicely complements the sheer amount of detail that the Planet 2000 pulls off the discs.

Some listeners - particularly classical music listeners - may prefer the more rich and sumptuous balance of the equivalent Denon and the Marantz 6000 OSE, but I found listening to orchestral or chamber works a treat through the Rega.

Music is made up of the sound, or tone of instruments (I'm including voice as an instrument) and the way those instruments are played. The intonations and rhythms set up by musicians are a vital part of the musical experience, and one which many pieces of hi-fi gloss over.

But this is an area where the Planet 2000 excels.

For example, the 2000 improved on the good rhythm qualities of the original. Myself and others listeners kept describing the 2000 as lively and sprightly, and that the music played with great enthusiasm.

Rhythmically the 2000 was a treat. Playing one of my favourite test pieces (Tori Amos, Father Lucifer) Tori's piano playing had a sprightly and organic sense of rhythm that just seemed so right. The interaction of the various piano lines that Ms Amos plays through the 2000 makes many other CD players sound completely lost and floundering.

So how does it compare to the original Planet? Based on some rather old notes and memories, plus some comments from a couple of Rega stockists, I'd say that the 2000 is greatly improved in the areas of rhythmic expression and the sheer amount of information it pulls off the disc.

Concluding thoughts
So how does the Planet 2000 stack up? It is easily one of the best CD players available in its price range. The life and vitality of the music that the 2000 allows through is, in my experience, unequalled in this area of the market.

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