Rega Aya speakers
After decades of reviewing audio products, I cannot believe that this is the first Rega design to pass through my hands: the British company is long-standing and has a loyal following. It was therefore with more than the usual excitement of receiving a new item that I unboxed the floorstanding Aya loudspeakers, the result of ten-years in development and featuring Rega’s own handmade drivers, including the ZRR tweeter housed in a concrete cabinet. Yes, concrete!
Rega Research
The company began, back in 1973, creating tonearms and turntables but was soon making complete hi-fi systems at its Southend factory under the guiding hand of Roy Gandy. Among the very first designs were the Rega Planet, a three-spoke turntable with steel and aluminium platter alongside the Acos Lustre tonearm.
April 1975 saw the Rega Planar with aluminium platter, followed by the infamous Planar 3 a year later with its glass platter, and the R200 tonearm. It was in April 1980 that the first loudspeakers were launched, the floor-standing RTX, with the ELA transmission line design following in 1990 and the ELA2 in 1992. Among many other models from the Rega stable over the years, the Kyte bookshelf model first came to market in 1993 along with the EL8; so, there is a rich pedigree of transducer work from the brand.
Steady growth now sees Rega employing over 140 people in a 38,000 square-foot, custom built facility and selling to 46 different countries with everything from amplifiers, phono stages and cartridges, to CD players and loudspeakers along with a wide range of accessories.
Design
The Aya is promoted by Rega as ‘breaking the mould’ and it’s immediately clear to see why. The product does not look like a standard box loudspeaker. For starters it uses a custom glass-reinforced cement cabinet of band-pass design in a 2.5-way system. This relies on a proprietary soft-dome ZRR high frequency unit, placed centrally on the front baffle, with a handmade five-inch MZ125 mid/bass driver above it, and a seven-inch handmade RR7.8 woofer below. There is a sizeable (85mm wide) reflex port below the drivers (separated from the drive units via an internal slotted filter) while the whole sits on a fixed tripod foot arrangement that is both neat and sturdy. No need for fiddly spikes or assembly here, it’s a straight out-of-the-box product.
The crossover, as it is, deserves special mention. Rather than an elaborate network Rega has opted for a minimal circuit on the tweeter consisting of just three coils and a capacitor, while the two main drivers each receive the same inputs and are allowed to roll-off naturally. In essence, this means that the larger cone is active from around 700Hz downwards.
Apart from the front baffle, with its brushed-metal effect finish and inlay plate to house the drivers, the remainder of the radical cabinets are left ‘naked’. Grilles are an optional accessory for those who feel the need, although the delicate tweeter has an inbuilt guard against enquiring fingers or vigorous dusting.
The rear houses one set of binding posts for single wire cable connection, which keeps costs under control and likely benefits timing. Also, the units are not as heavy as first expected from a ‘concrete design’ (just 14kg each), thanks to the use of glass fibres and partly because they stand 87cm tall which means they sit below the top of my 40-inch screen and are fairly unobtrusive, rather than dominating the listening room as many designs tend to.
The move away from more traditional timber cabinets is a shrewd one as pricing of same has recently become, in the words of one reputable manufacturer, “insane”. Concrete was all the rage in the 1970s and the 1990s saw a revival by the short lived Electrofluidics, and it has long been a popular option among enthusiasts who want solidity and don’t need to do any shipping.
A quick in-room nearfield frequency sweep confirms the high levels of bass output heard during audition and also some mid-band anomalies around 3.5kHz which are less prevalent during listening. This will be as a result of the simple crossover used which gives a greater overlap and results in a broad suck out.
The off-axis response mirrors the on-axis very well and the listening panel noted the wide dispersion. The treble response reflects a common hi-fi balance of gently rising HF but is well controlled to avoid screeching and undue sibilance on voices. There is the critical marketing balance to be had between making the bass more balanced or leaving it as it is since low frequencies impress during audition and many listeners will find it appealing.
Rega have deliberately set out to create something different with the Aya and made every effort to ensure that’s the case. There’s little point, given the enormous competition, in simply making another loudspeaker like all the others on the market. The result is radical.
Installation
The front ports should allow closer placement to the rear wall although I ended up moving the Ayas some four-feet into the room to reduce the LF output such that it suited my smaller than average space. With a quoted sensitivity of 89.5dB and rated at a nominal 6 Ohms (dipping to just 4 Ohms in the treble region), the Aya should not be hard to drive. I used the mighty Hegel H600 streaming amplifier but switched to the more modest H190 as a more realistic partnership which also to help tame the bass response which had a tendency to dominate the overall sound.
Digital sources were an internet tuner, satellite receiver and Qobuz tracks via an Auralic Aries G1 streamer. A slight toe-in was made in order to achieve an on-axis response at the listening position.
Sound quality
I have memories of hearing Rega speakers at hi-fi shows, long ago, being optimised to cater for rather dull-sounding vinyl pickup cartridges; so, no low bass, a rather bright upper midrange and a pronounced HF ‘sparkle’. But what will the new-generation Aya herald?
The listening panel assemble, with the loudspeakers already run-in by the Editor, and we settle down. Immediately, the prominent bass I had experienced was now moderated with the cabinets moved away from the wall and one of the bass ports filled with an acoustic bung in my LF-heavy listening room.
Overall, we noted how the Aya was a fast-sounding loudspeaker, full of body and able to deliver a significant punch with some impressive slam. They possess not only confidence but also immediacy while being able to create large-scale soundstages from well recorded material, projecting the sound with decent height and width.
In the Aya we have an unusual mix of speed and depth alongside what must be said are glorious levels of musical detail. Lively tracks encourage the feet to tap spontaneously although the ability to convey emotion could be suppressed, especially streaming classical material as with Allegri’s Miserere (Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips) which lost some of its usual ethereal magic and sparkle. In fact, they seemed happier with large-scale works such as the CSO under Solti performing Mahler 8 and even massive choral masterpieces including Beethoven’s Ninth (Bayreuth Festival/Furtwangler) and Handel’s Messiah (RPO/Mackerras).
It seemed fitting to include in the playlist Meghan Trainor’s very catchy tune All About That Bass which became a famous karaoke backing track with notable bass work. Unsurprisingly, the Aya handles the bounce and strut with aplomb. Even those unusual sing-talking vocals are portrayed with realism as is the bass rhythm and the horns which drive the tune along with vigour. The catchy chorus melody shows the Aya’s timing abilities and her smooth, strong voice entertains.
Turning to Bob Malley’s Buffalo Soldier and a performance that loudspeakers at twice the size and several-times the price would be proud of. The Regas are clearly very much at home with this kind of material. The beat is precise, defined and the catchy melody enveloped the panel, with involvement levels unexpected at this price point as well as the ability to layer the various aspects of the music.
In the same vein, with The Pioneers’ Let Your Yeah be Yeah (written by Jimmy Cliff), this soul-influenced reggae track again showed the Aya loudspeaker at its finest. Encouraging me to increase the volume, these compact floorstanders are capable of handling high SPLs and moving a lot of air without losing composure. There’s lovely depth to the bass notes with punch and poise maintained. Only at neighbour-annoying levels is there any breakup. Overall a most engaging listen. That’s not to say they will suit large listening rooms and I know the Editor felt they were not a natural fit in his large, purpose-built space where much bigger arrays perform well.
While very much at home with the likes of garage and reggae, the Aya is more competent than to be genre-restricted even if it did struggle slightly with more delicate classical ensembles and some speech-based material, although I left them in my main system after the review panel left and they handled my everyday repertoire of drama, current affairs and documentaries to the extent that I wasn’t tempted to repack them until it was time to return the units. Many loudspeakers on review don’t last that long!
Conclusion
This is clearly a lot of speaker for the money. Quite how Rega can manufacture the Aya for the final cost is remarkable, although the cabinet choice will help as does manufacture of all the drive units in-house. If this design were in a plywood or MDF box, sourced in Europe, the costs could be five-times more.
Rega have clearly set out to create something different and have excelled at that. The panel members loved it from the off and I grew to appreciate what the Aya is capable of. Certainly this is no studio monitor, but the Aya is a very enjoyable product, bringing dull tracks to life in a way that most designs simply can’t achieve.
The bass output is, shall we say, phenomenal. I can see the Aya having instant appeal to Beats headphone users, of which there are a great many. It deserves wider take-up though and will fit well in many domestic settings. In fact, it is probably one of the greatest audio bargains of the moment.