Rega Aura MC

A phono preamp that gets to the heart of the matter

On October 28th Rega company owner and sole director Roy Gandy gave away all of his shares to a trust established to protect the company in the future. He created an EOT (employee owned trust) and effectively gifted Rega to its workers. The reason given is that this move will “protect our culture and decades of hard work. Becoming an EOT prevents the company being sold and potential buyouts (by dreaded investors) whilst providing all staff with job security going forward.” In an age when making as much money as possible and selling to the highest bidder has become the norm for founders of successful companies this is both heart warming and extraordinary. Roy Gandy has always struck me as being an unusually enlightened and free thinking individual but I was surprised by this bold move. I hope that it inspires the owners of other successful brands to follow suit, to create a legacy rather than a nest egg and thus ensure that the corporations that they founded have a real future ahead of them.

Apparently the Aura MC is Roy Gandy’s favorite piece of Rega electronics, which given the quality of more affordable creations such as the Brio amplifier, is perhaps surprising, but you will recall that turntables are at the heart of Rega’s product line and to fully appreciate a great turntable you need a great phono preamp. The Aura MC is nothing if not that. It sits in Rega’s Reference range alongside the Osiris integrated amplifier and two variants of the Isis CD player, inhabiting a substantial full width case with lavish detailing by comparison with the brand’s more affordable offerings.

The Aura MC has a single input on RCA sockets that are recessed into the back of the case with analogue outputs on both RCA and XLR sockets alongside. Those wondering why there is no balanced input should consider that while the output from a MC cartridge comprises discrete signal and earth for each channel and so is inherently "balanced", there's not the inverted version of both signal and earth found in a truly balanced "dual differential" source.

As the name indicates the Aura MC is only suitable for moving coil cartridges, it offers capacitance adjustment which is a feature usually associated with MM cartridges but as the manual suggests it is possible to both match MC cartridge manufacturer’s recommendations and to tune the balance to some degree with this facility. Of greater interest to MC users are five load or impedance options ranging from 50 to 400 Ohms, this should suit the vast majority of moving coils but there are some that prefer higher impedances. The Aura MC is naturally designed for use with Rega’s moving coils which have a fairly typical 100 Ohm impedance requirement.

The Aura MC has changed in one key way over its period of production, the early examples used step up transformers to bring the low voltages produced by an MC up to a level that can be amplified without adding noise by transistor circuitry. The current version has low noise FET transistors to provide the first stage of gain, these are arranged as a Class A symmetrical compound pair input stage. This stage also provides the passive high frequency part of the RIAA equalization. The second stage is a Class A differential amplifier and provides active amplification for the low frequency element of the RIAA EQ. The third and final stage inverts the signal to provide the balanced output and uses the same circuit topology as the second stage. The power supply voltage is 60% higher than is normally used in order to provide maximum headroom for the Aura MC.

Facilities include two levels of gain, 63.5dB and 69.5dB, but Rega recommend that the lower setting be used with all but the lowest output cartridges. They also point out that the balanced outputs offer 6dB greater signal level than the single ended and those in search of more level should try this route before adding extra gain. There are two lesser spotted switches on the front panel, mute and mono. Both have their uses not least mono which transforms the sound achieved with mono recordings, while mono LPs are relatively scarce they have a quality that makes them highly collectible despite the fact that so few phono preamps and preamplifiers offer this key feature.

Sound Quality

Rega electronics as a whole tend to have a lean balance, they emphasize pace and musical coherence by keeping the bass tight and articulate. Their phono preamps on the other hand are generally a bit warmer and more forgiving, this is the case with the Aura and the more affordable Aria. I suspect that this is because early Rega MCs, the first Apheta in particular, were quite lean not to say bright when used on ‘fat free’ Rega turntables. I use a Rega Aphelion 2 on a Naia turntable and that MC is the most even handed and revealing yet relaxed moving coil in the range, it is also the most expensive. My reference phono preamp is a Tom Evans Groove+ SRX MkII which is largely devoid of overhang or blur, and with the wrong cartridge or turntable can sound a bit lean. The Aura MC is a warmer and more inviting partner for the Naia/Aphelion 2 and the combination provided many hours of intensely engaging musical entertainment.

The Aura MC has not been tuned to impress, it doesn’t hit you with dynamics and imaging that rev up the excitement, which is probably not so good for sales but turns out to be very good for long term musical appreciation. What really struck me is that once the preferred track from an album has been enjoyed there is no inclination to get up and put on another record, rather you are reminded of why the album was purchased in the first place because there is more to it than that stand out track. In other words you want it to keep spinning and don’t pick up your phone but continue to appreciate the music in a way that many phono preamps which knock your socks of in the first place often fail to do.

One such standout track is “Long Distance Love” from Little Feat’s The Last Record Album, this has glorious bass on it and the Aura lets you know all about its texture and depth whilst beguiling with timing that is in the premier league. Timing has always been a Rega strength so it’s natural that the company’s best phono preamp should be extremely good but what becomes clear is that it does so with no sense of effort, this is what hooks you into every decent tune on every slab of vinyl you let the needle transcribe. It’s not a hard edged, take no prisoners style speed but a total absence of blurring when it comes to leading and trailing edges. This ensures that the tonal balance remains even handed and allows a true perspective of what the artist was seeking to achieve. Sharp leading edges can make music more exciting but eventually they become tiring, likewise beefed up bass rumbles your gut and feels great but it gets in the way of the music, neither are on offer here.

I was tempted to try a few classics and picked out Rickie Lee Jones’s self titled debut and was a little disappointed that “Danny’s All Star Joint” wasn’t more up-beat but then found myself enjoying the music rather than the sound. This is a fundamental that few brands seem to appreciate as well as Rega, it is great to hear a lovely sound but that will only take you so far down the road to musical ecstasy, what gets you there is the message in the music, the unspoken language that we understand without having to analyze what’s going on. It’s what makes music the greatest of arts and the Rega Aura MC delivers that communication better than nearly all of the alternatives both at and above its $6,695 price. It’s also what separates analogue sources from their digital counterparts, but you already know that.

This proved to be the case with Les McCann’s Invitation to Openness which can sound a bit thin with some phono preamps but here I found it difficult to make any notes because the music was such a distraction. You still hear the nature of the recording, its limitations and balance but this is only a minor concern when the musical message is so engaging. With Sun Kil Moon’s “Carry Me Ohio” (Ghosts of the Great Highway) I was actually struck by how much detail was coming through, this is a relatively new album for me but I have been playing this track on a streamer for some time, yet the Aura managed to pull out nuances of image depth and dynamics that had not been clear before. This phono preamp is a musical conduit that gets out of the way and lets the recording speak for itself, which should be the aim of any piece of audio equipment but frequently isn’t because engineers love to tinker with voicing, there doesn’t seem to have been much of that going on here.

Aware that not everyone has a Rega cartridge I fitted a Van den Hul Colibri to the arm on the Naia in an attempt to get a different perspective on the Aura’s capabilities. This MC prefers an impedance in the 500 Ohm to 1 kOhm range so I set the Aura to its 400 Ohm max and got the stylus warmed up with a familiar LP. The result turned out to be a bit more relaxed and romantic than with the Aphelion but almost as engaging, especially when I added two more fixing bolts between the Colibri’s acetal plastic body and headshell. The nature of the fixing means that you can’t torque the fixings in the usual way so this extra fixing helped solidify the bass to some extent. It’s still a more laid back sound but a very enjoyable one that allowed Michael Franks’ band to swing in very enjoyable fashion on his Art of Tea album.

Conclusion

The Rega Aura MC is a high definition moving coil phono preamp that does all the hi-fi stuff including image scale, depth and precision, low level detail resolution, timing and dynamics extremely well for its price point. It is really well built and has features that are not to be found on many competing products. But ultimately it provides a window into the music in your vinyl grooves that very few can match when it comes to engagement of the heart and mind, if you want to get fully involved in the music and hear what the artist is saying it has few peers.