I sold a Rega Apollo CD deck on ebay for 220 pounds.

The buyer has now told me that the coax digital output doesn’t work and this was the source they wanted to use with their DAC. The other outputs work fine.

I apologised and explained that I had never used either of the digital outputs and wasn’t aware of the problem. I offered them to return the cd player and get a full refund.

Their response was to suggest contacting Rega for repair costs, I said I thought that they would be uneconomic on a s/h player.

They have now said that I friend has suggest they use the digital optical output but need a decent interconnect for 50 quid plus postage. This is for 220 pound player!

I have rejected this suggestion and have again offered a refund.

I am being unreasonable?

No. Refund or keep it.

I don’t think so, you can refund in full or strike a deal both parties are happy with, if you’re not happy with the deal stick to the refund. Does sound a bit suspect to me I must say. The good news is light is light and digital is on or off, send him 99p to buy an optical cable cos it’ll be exactly the same as the £50 one.

Odd how reluctant they are to return something allegedly “broken”.

I’d stick to your guns over returning it, just to see if they go away, ie it isn’t really broken…..

I suspect without being up on digital (I still use my lp12 sondek!) that they have made some sortof mistake – a proper audiophile, if one output is better than the other, isn’t going to want to compromise by listening to the flawed output, and it might be £220 only, but for the man in the street, Rega is still “High end”.

I suspect something amiss, it doesnt add up.

send him 99p to buy an optical cable cos it’ll be exactly the same as the £50 one.

daveh – Agree completely I have sent links to Amazon with “decent” cables for 3 or 4 quid!

Agree with daveh, price up a cable and offer to send him one but don’t tell him the price your paying. If he is legit then he will take that offer as he is getting what he wants, if not he just wants money off the item

She has just got back to me to say she will consider it over the weekend.

Apparently there is a significant difference between a Toslink with a plastic end and one with a glass end. Must make the 1’s and 0’s happy to be fed through a more expensive material. WTF!

Apparently, they have “expensive hand made coax digital cables”,which she wants to use, strange, she said that she was more of a vinyl person really, not sure why she would have very expensive digital interconnects for a turntable?

Also, why would you buy such things to use with a “mid range” cd deck bought s/h off ebay?

She is really starting to p!5s me off now!

I have a feeling that if it does come back then the coax output will be working fine…..

I think the digital coax can be switched on and off on these, its a long time ago tho so i could be wrong.

Forget that was an old marantz i had that did that.

From rega manual

Digital Out: for output to digital components such as D.A converter, digital processor, DAT, or MD.
Always check that the connecting component is compatible with 44.1k coaxial S/PDIF input)

http://www.rega.co.uk/downloads/Apollo%20English%20manual.pdf

Parkesie – Thanks for that. I noticed it when I looked to see about switching the outputs on and off.
I wonder where this leaves me if it is an incompatible dac?

“I wonder where this leaves me if it is an incompatible dac?”
Legally her problem . You sold what you described unless you said it would work with her dac .

It may well be worth contacting Rega to ensure that there’s no way the SPDIF output can be switched off. I know it doesn’t say so in the manual but often there can be service modes which are accidentally accessed. Doesn’t seem that likely if optical is working.

If SPDIF output is faulty but optical is ok, there’s probably a limited number of things that could be wrong, but I couldn’t be sure without seeing the circuit diagram. Where are you? Independent repairer may be cheaper than Rega if it is faulty.

It’s a fixed 44.1kHz output which any hifi DAC can accept, but some are manually switched rather than auto sensing. Could they try it into a pc or something like that?

I wouldn’t be buying them a cable but I also wouldn’t be convinced that they’re trying to rip you off.