This hand-built moving-coil was developed to match Rega’s
upmarket turntables and now partners its latest top models. Does it do them
justice?
Rega first started work on a moving-coil when its overseas distributors
asked for a higher performance cartridge, priced to match the more expensive
turntables.
It began by building a 20-times scale model of a moving-coil
generator in wood. Different coil and pivot-pad arrangements could then be
tried, using a loudspeaker voice-coil to excite the model at various musical
frequencies.
The final design departed radically from the usual MC
structure, where the coils are attached to the cantilever just ahead of the
compliant pivot or suspension block. It also did away with the usual steel
tie-wire that holds the assembly in position, and has to be critically
tensioned and damped.
Built into a
strong aluminium frame, the cartridge provides for a third mounting bolt, when
used with a Rega tonearm
Instead, Rega has the tapered aluminium cantilever passing
through a compliant elastomer grommet, set in the front plate of the cartridge
frame and forms the pivot. Behind this, on the back end of the cantilever, are
the coils. So the basic layout of cantilever, pivot and sensing elements is
more like that of a typical MM.
Rega says that the conventional moving-coil's tie wire
creates an unacceptable resonance so is usually damped by a rudimentary piece
of foam rubber. By contrast, it asserts, ‘Apheta's natural high frequency resonance
is subtle and low in amplitude therefore eliminating the need for insensitive
damping designs.'
Even so, the Rega los phono stage, designed to partner the
Apheta when it first appeared, included a notch filter ‘designed to enhance the
Apheta cartridge by reducing unwanted high frequency energy present' and said
to be useful for older records with higher surface noise. Apparently, though,
the feedback from the market was that this wasn't really necessary and the
cartridge response has since been tamed.
Apheta's natural
high frequency resonance is subtle and low in amplitude
Like Rega's top moving-magnet, the Exact, the Apheta
features the well-proven Vital stylus. It looks rather exposed with that long
projecting cantilever, but gets some protection from the little V-shaped metal
loop above. A plastic stylus guard can be fitted when not in use.
As well as the usual two threaded mounting holes at
half-inch centres, the machined aluminium body has a third hole that allows a
three-point fixing in a Rega arm. A label gives the unit's serial number plus
the recommended tracking force - determined for each cartridge individually
during production.
New insights
Listening to the Apheta, it immediately seems to meet the
great criteria for hi-fi success, by making you lend a fresh ear to recordings
you thought you knew well. With Eric Clapton's Slowhand [RSO 2479 201], the
atmosphere of what usually seems to be a muddy production could now better be
described as ‘foggy', all founded on the cushion of a strong but never-dragging
bass. And it was as if the Apheta could pick out the instruments quite sharply,
like car headlights looming suddenly out of a pea-souper. In ‘Cocaine', for
example, it was great to hear the two entwined lead guitars vividly presented
with real purpose.
Seen through the
Apheta’s frosted acrylic wrap, the tiny moving-coil assembly with its lead-out
wires is (just) visible in front of the magnet
Perhaps I should credit the RP8 turntable used rather than
the cartridge for the tremendous, hypnotic beat the combination generated on
‘Lay Down Sally', but at the same time, the Apheta cartridge did seem to get to
the heart of Clapton's vocals, revealing the real person behind the
deliberately veiled production sound.
Won’t suit all material
On other recordings too, the Apheta could sometimes project
the sound of instruments in a new and interesting way. If, like me, you have
sometimes wondered how any band, even the Grateful Dead, could possibly need
two drummers, you would be impressed by the way that the Apheta, with a bottom
end that was clean and explicit, could make such good rhythmic sense of the
thundering toms of Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart on Dead Set [Arista DARTY
11].
At the other end of the spectrum, the Apheta emphasised the
zing of their cymbals, and it gave Jerry Garcia's guitar a commanding and
incisive presence, slicing through the ambience of the packed stadium.
And yet, although the Apheta could be impressive on so many
recordings, there were times when it did seem just too bright. One example was
Joan Armatrading's Whatever’s For Us [Cube Records HIFLY 12], where the
Apheta's presentation was far too clangorous.
The Apheta could
sometimes project the sound of instruments in a new and interesting way
Given an open-sounding recording without too much treble
emphasis, the Apheta could excel. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it did so on Rega's
own recording of Christine Collister, Love [Rega ENS002], with an ear-catching
sharpness and clarity to the strings.
With classical music, again, the Apheta could become
over¬powering with a bright-sounding recording. Yet it had me absorbed in the
Faure Requiem with the choir of King's College, Cambridge and the NPO conducted
by David Willcocks [EMI ASD 2358] – a recording old enough to have featured Bob
Chilcott as the boy treble.
Here there was an almost tremulous lucidity to the voices, a
spacious and easy sound to the orchestra, and underneath it all, the organ bass
notes breathed out strikingly. For me, this was the Apheta at its best.
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Specifications
·
Model: Medium-output moving-coil cartridge ·
Made by: Rega Research Ltd, Essex ·
Supplied by: Rega Research Ltd ·
Price: $1,535
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