| Audio Emporium
Newsletter Rotel’s
FIFTEEN SERIES Begins to Arrive In
the fall Rotel said it would begin to ship the new 15 Series soon. The 15 Series replaces
the venerable TEN Series of Rotel products. It has taken a while but a fair number of the
15 Series models are arriving. Now in! Power Amps: RB-1572 $1300, 250x2: Powerful D amp with loads of
dynamic range and excellent detail. The
sleeper in this new line is the RB-1572 power amp. Not many speakers need more than 250
w/ch. When you consider the company the RB-1572 keeps, most of that competition runs about
$4k. At $1300 the RB-1572 is quite the value. It has the speed and power to control almost
anything. You can hear it with big Paradigms and B&Ws in our shop. You’ll be
mightily impressed by the bass impact and control. In the TEN Series, you had to go to
$2500 to get more power than this. We’re confident you’ll be happily knocked on
your keister by the RB-1572! RB-1562 $800, 100x2: Sounds quite similar to bigger
brother- without quite the dynamic range. RB-1510 $600, 65x2: Ditto RB-1562! These 3 power amps
continue Rotel’s tradition of cool D clarity! Preamps: RC-1550 $700: Clean, quiet- very fast! MM phono. RC-1580 $1500: Discrete, more detailed than RC-1550
and stronger bass performance! MM/MC phono. As with RC-1082 predecessor, RC-1580 flirts
with state of the art offerings at 3-4 times more money. CD Player. RCD-1520 $1000: New single play, slot loaded player.
Has new Wolfson DAC and Burr Brown op-amps. Some of the forums are really beginning to
buzz about RCD-1520 being the best CD player available south of the Bryston at $2700! Rotel’s
Phono Preamp $200 There
aren’t many receivers, or even preamps, with phono sections in them anymore. When
they do have phono built in, most are MM only and aren’t very quiet. The solution for
the serious record lover is an outboard phono section. There are many out there to choose
from. Almost all feature a wall wart power supply connected to a cigar box chassis with on
board PCB. Recently
updated, Rotel has made one of the top phono preamps for many years, supporting MM &
MC. Because Rotel makes a handful of products on the same chassis size, you get a real
chassis with real power supply- and terrific phono performance for only $200. If
this product was made by one of the “phono specialists” out there, the price
would be a grand. Rotel benefits from being a broad based manufacturer. Just tooling up to
make a given chassis and faceplate is a substantial expense. Since Rotel can spread that
among an array of SKUs, the phono preamp is inexpensive. In fact, it is too inexpensive!
If they sold this exact same unit for $500, people would take it more seriously! It
actually has more hardware within than most competitors that charge $500. Musically,
the bass is especially strong compared to most phono sections. Most are too lean. The
Rotel is extremely quiet- a by product of its much larger power supply than the other
guys. It is egregiously underpriced at $200. But let’s not tell them! Hyperion Compact Discs I’ve sampled a few Hyperion CDs over the years. Marc Andre-Hamelin is probably the label’s most famous pianist. The sound quality of Hyperion discs is among the finest out there! In the past year I’ve bought a large array of music from three other pianists on the Hyperion label. Angela Hewitt, Stephen Hough and Nikolai Demidenko. Now that I own a vast array of music from these four great musicians I’m happy to say there’s not a dud in the group! I wrote of Hewitt’s Schumann last year and gave it an A+. The two CDs I’d like to point out now are Hough playing the great Brahm’s piano sonata #3 (CDA67237) and Chopin Ballades & Scherzos (CDA 67456). These two discs cover classic, romantic territory. Their performance and sound quality are worth seeking out! Hyperion costs more than the other guys, usually $22+. But they’re worth it! OK, toss on the third CD, Demidenko playing Schumann sonatas #1 & #3 (CDH55300) too! |