Elex-R

The Elex-R is a sublime blend of the Brio-R design with the power circuits and advanced phono stage of the Elicit-R. Rega’s engineers have achieved the perfect balance of power, control and dynamics, delivering a performance that always puts the music first.

You will find plenty of connectivity options allowing complete flexibility and integration within the rest of the Rega range.

Winner of the WHAT HI-FI? AWARDS 2014, 2015 & 2016 for Best stereo amp.

Product Details

Design Innovation

The Elex-R is built to the highest standard and designed to deliver the best possible audio performance whilst remaining simple to use and easy to setup.The Elex-R is built into the full width Rega case with increased heat dissipation, which along with a larger transformer enables the Elex-R to deliver 90 Watts per channel into 6Ω and 72.5 Watts per channel into a design centre rating of 8.

Our time, effort & money have been spent on developing the circuit and construction utilizing the highest specification of components throughout. As part of the design we have included useful features like pre-amplifier output, to enable the new Elex-R amplifier to be used in a wide combination of systems and have avoided superfluous gadgets such as tone controls or a headphone socket as they can obstruct the signal path and degrade the produced sound quality.

The Elex-R has been built to Rega’s extremely high standards of reliability and quality to ensure many years of musical enjoyment. The primary function of an amplifier is to boost and equalize the low level signal generated by a phono cartridge, DAC and CD player or other source component to a level that can drive the loudspeakers. It is vital that the amplifier achieves this whilst minimising distortion, as this would directly affect the music. The distortion level is typically 0.007%; just under the clipping of the output.

The volume control and pre-amplifier used in the Elex-R is designed to overcome the problems associated with the standard arrangement. This design uses a custom chip along with peripheral support IC’s like a microcontroller and a custom made rotary volume control.

The Elex-R uses a combined feedback and passive volume control, where the feedback and input levels are varied to set the required volume level. The level and tracking between the two channels is set by the close tolerance parts in the pre-amplifier circuit and less by the actual potentiometer itself, thus keeping the mismatch of channels due to volume control tracking irregularities to a minimum.As well as keeping tracking irregularities to a minimum, this method also reduces noise and input overload as the control will only ‘use’ the required gain to amplify the signal.This form of volume control is normally only found in professional broadcast environments where accurate low noise control of levels is required.

Power Amplifier Technology

The output amplifier used in the Elex-R, Elicit-R and Brio-R was born after extensive research by our engineers to develop a low source impedance emitter follower Class-A driver stage. This is based around a complementary pair of 150w Sanken Darlington output transistors. The technical and sonic improvement gained by the use of low impedance drivers is well known, however, it can feature high standing currents in the driver stage when using standard transistor configurations. By combining the low impedance driver with the Sanken Darlington transistors (with their imbedded thermal bias network running at a lower standing current) this combination forms a complementary emitter follower emulating Class-A conditions with good thermal stability with lower standing.

Reviews & Awards

2018 Best Stereo amplifer £700-£1500

WHAT HI-Fi Awards 2017 Best Stereo Amplifier £700-£1500

Hi-Fi Choice Group Test Winner 2017

WHAT HI-FI? 2016 AWARDS - Best stereo amp £700-£1000

2015 Best Stereo Amplifier £700-£1000

WHAT HIFI Awards 2014 - Best stereo amp.

What HI-FI 5 star group test winner January 2015

WHAT HI-FI Review / November edition 2014

Read the-ear.net review of the Elex-R

Audio fi Review / September 2014

Key features

• Rega custom full width case with improved heat dissipation
• Combined feedback & passive volume control pre-amp
• 90 watts per channel into 6 Ohms / 72 watts into 8ohms
• High specification integrated phono stage
• New multi-lingual user manual
• Enhanced power supplies for the driver stage
• Hybrid of the Brio-R and Elicit-R design
• Dedicated mini remote handset included
• Pre-amp out / Record out / 4 line inputs
• New custom transformer

Specifications

• Power Supply
• Voltage: 230v & 115v
• Frequency: 50/60Hz
• Power Consumption: 250 Watts
• 230v Fuse: T3.15AL 20mm
• 115v Fuse: T5AL 20mm
• Dimensions W 430mm x D 320mm x H 80mm

Output power

• 72.5W 8Ω both channels driven - Design centre rating    
• 90W 6Ω both channels driven - Rega speaker impedance rating
• 113W 4Ω both channels driven

Phono input

• Sensitivity (72.5W 8Ω1.7mV (Load 47K in parallel with 220pF)
• Maximum input level: 100mV

Line input

• Sensitivity (72.5W 8Ω 164mv (Load 30-50K)
• Maximum input level: 10v

Tape output

• Level: 164mV with rated input
• Output impedance: 470

Line output

• Level: 625mV with rated input
• Output impedance: 600