Rega Mercury Reference Pre-Amplifier

The main development objective for the Mercury was to create a no compromise audio pre-amplifier. The Mercury is hand crafted to reveal the true potential of your hi-fi system thanks to an ultra-low noise floor which delivers exceptional dynamic range. The Mercury pre-amplifier, like the Solis, is the culmination of almost four decades of Rega electronics engineering experience in solid-state amplifier development.

The art of silence

Capturing the detail in a quiet performance is key to delivering an engaging sound. A well-engineered “clean” pre-amplifier preserves all those subtle details instead of masking them with unwanted noise. This fully featured reference pre-amplifier offers great flexibility and usability with the convenience of a high-performance DAC, discrete headphone amplifier, and a full colour IPS display.

Key Features

• Fully discrete symmetrical circuitry in the core signal path
• High performance DAC with S/PDIF and USB inputs
• Galvanically isolated asynchronous USB input
• Discrete headphone amplifier
• Full colour IPS display
• Custom backlit Orbit remote control
• Standby mode

• Amplifier Circuit

  Throughout the signal path, the Mercury uses a discrete, differentially driven, fully symmetrical, high linearity and bandwidth common base voltage amplifier. Each stage uses high current drive capability, complementary Class A output stage amplifiers. This form of symmetrical amplifier circuit topology will provide the necessary voltage and current drive to enable the Mercury to perform with the minimum of distortion. Critical amplification stages use Linear Systems ultra-low noise FET (Field Effect Transistor) transistors in the differential quad pair input stages. This is the same circuit topology as used in the second stage of the Aura MC amplifier.

  The Mercury uses the Alps Blue Velvet RK27 volume control (as used in the Osiris amplifier), however, this is paired with symmetrical common base driver stage amplifiers. The main outputs are DC coupled to eliminate output coupling capacitors. These outputs are appropriately DC protected by the protection circuitry.

  Rega has taken circuit design leads from the Rega reference range and Saturn CD player’s post DAC analogue filter stages and implemented this topology using the symmetrical common base driver stage circuitry. This means the signal path from the analogue output of the DAC’s ICs to the output of the pre-amplifier is entirely symmetrical.