I don't quite hate them per say...it's more like the hell that I went through to get a Rega player to audition in the end made me feel very disappointed when the player didn't turn out to be what I was looking for. And along the auditioning way, I ended up breaking my previous player as well (which may have been a good thing, or I'd probably still be on a Denon DCM-370). Which is what adds up to one teed off experience with Rega.
Rega's signature sound just didn't agree with my tastes, particularly for the price. Now the Planet 2000 is probably a great player in its price range. But one of the things I expected from upgrading to a more expensive CD player was better/much better detail retrieval than whatever I have currently. This is just a part of my preferences...I like to hear layers of detail.
So you can imagine my disappointment when it turned out that the Rega Jupiter 2000 I paid $1200 for, that retails at $1800, had no better detail retrieval than a $200 Denon DCM-370. It is, for the most part, a player based entirely on PRAT at the cost of inner detail, which is apparently the signature sound of Rega gear. And having heard it, I'm pretty much staying away from Rega gear myself.
I had a Sony SCD-9000ES for a while, but I still felt I wasn't hearing everything in my recordings laid out before me. From the SACDs I heard on it though, it was easier to hear deep inner details than on the CD version of the same album. Nonetheless I fall in the camp of people that buys and listens to way more CDs than SACDs. My next obvious choices from reviews was either the Arcam FMJ CD23 or the Sony XA-777ES. Tough battle, but to make a long story short, I ended up choosing the CD23 over the Sony.
I paid not much more for my current Arcam FMJ CD23T than the Jupiter, and I like it much, much more than than Jupiter I heard. Now this is a player that's right up my alley. The dCS Ring DAC the CD23 employs unravels details like no tomorrow in recordings...and probably does it the best in its price range. It will pretty much serve as my source for a while...until I can strike it rich and get a full blown dCS DAC like the Delius or Elgar.
Yes, you could definitely consider me an accuracy details freak.
My system is built around that very preference.