Home Audio 3.0

The spring of 2006 was not a terribly monumental time. There had just been a Winter Olympics at Turin, Italy, and the Russians were giving the Ukraine a hard time. So nothing new..... That was 14 years ago. We were into our second year here in DFW and my son was 3. That April, my wife was a month away from giving birth to our daughter, and Rotel brought forth the RSX-1057 home theater receiver. 

 

Here's Rotel's baby. I'm showing the image of the sliver-faced version (I have the black) because it's easier to see everything, and of course the connector covered back panel. One of the things that makes this model special is that it's a 7-channel unit, and pretty much up-to-date in terms of home theater decoding. So much so, that very little has changed since then, unless you're looking for Dolby Atmos, WiFi or Bluetooth. The main knock on it was the rather low power rating of 75w per channel (remember, these are Rotel power ratings).

Why are we looking at this? Because, three and half years after the last major upgrade and around 10 years since I've been using the Integra DTR-6.3 as the heart of my system, I've finally upgraded! I actually went back and looked. I wrote a post on May 1, 2011 discussing my system built around that receiver and already had it at that time! Wow; that's a long time! So, let's get into what I've done. As is typical, I'm not going to review it, I'll just discuss the main features that caused me to go with this component.

The driving force was not really the features, or the newer processing capabilities, but the simple fact that this is different/higher level of sound reproduction. Rotel in a general sense is at the top end of "Mid-Fi" or budget "High-End". I've been dabbling in this direction for some time.

You might remember that close to 2 years ago, I had moved on to using some Rotel amps to drive my speakers soon after I got the B&W DM603/S3. I went with Rotel for their smooth uncolored power and the ability to bridge the RB-976's 6 channels into to a very solid 150 watts into 3 channels. That resolves the major criticism 1057's with something I already had in my system. At the same time, since it was a receiver, I was able to eliminate the use of the RB-956AX by using the 1057's internal power for the rear speakers. I figure that by removing the load of driving the main 3 front channels off of it, the 1057 should have more than sufficient power reserves to drive the 4 rear channels. What else did I do to warrant a full version change (3.0)?A major overhaul of the input sources.

I always saw the Dual turntable as being a temporary fix until I found something better. 10+ years later, it was time. I had always wanted a Rega Planar 2 or 3, or at the very least a good clone like the Music Halls, Pro-ject, or ....... this! Well, actually, I've really wanted the Rotel RP-900 with the glass platter, or it's predescessor, the RP-850/855 as well. There were/are rumors that they were contracted by Rega, but in all probability, they were built by Systemdek, a well-regarded British company that built Rega clones! 

This is the latest piece which I'm listening to right now. The Rotel RDV-1040 (yes, mine is black). A DVD player for music playback? Yup. Rotel DVD players have always been well thought of as CD transports. Unfortunately, it's not far enough up the chain to do SACD or DVD-A, but I'm happy to have a single disc transport. Other than Christmas time when I put on 5-6 CD's and let them play for several hours, I've never really played my discs several at a time and found it annoying to have to have the mechanism rotate them out. So, not having a multi-disc changer was no loss.

You might be wondering if there's a point to changing out everything to all this Rotel equipment. I'll have to be honest, and say that I haven't sat and listened long enough to tell you that I'm hearing a distinct difference. That's going to take time. I'll say that I do seem to detect less stridency and everything sounds more relaxed. Of course, I'm almost 60 and my hearing isn't what it used to be. I will say that I'm happy, after 15+ years, I've finally been able to replicated the equipment of when I work in the industry,  I could honestly tell customers that it was the best sounding "bang-for-the-buck" stuff that we sold.

It's Audio Season

In other words, it's summer time...... For me, I've found that I'm much more likely to work on the A/V part of my hobbies during the summer. I'm not completely certain why that is; maybe I feel like I need more time than is normally available during the school year. Although you could probably say that about all my hobbies (Photography, computers, and audio). Anyway, recently I found myself reevaluating the A/V system. Yes; there was that little episode with the new TV, but that wasn't really about the system. 

 

Let me start by discussing my current rig and what my plans have been all along. Years ago, I had always planned on my "ultimate" system to be based on Rotel equipment. More on that later. However, a few years ago, when I finally got around to moving on from my temporary system that came about due to our move to the Dallas area, I went with practical versus, what I really wanted. So, a receiver by Integra for about $150 was the order of the day. Not that these things are bad by any stretch of the imagination, they just aren't as transparent and musical as higher order equipment. So, in the back of my mind all these years of enjoying the my bargain Integra gear, I constantly had something else in the back of my mind......

 

About a week ago, while doing one of my periodic searches on eBay for a special deal, I found one! There was an ad for a pair of Rotel RB-956ax amps for what was really a reasonable price (about $300). Unfortunately, one of the amps had a channel that was "out". So, one had 6 channels of 40 watts each, while one had 5 functioning channels. On this particular model, the 3 channel pairs can be bridged into 3 channels giving 90 watts each which is perfect for my system for the 3 rear speakers. As it turns out, the seller sold the good amp to someone and ended up only have the bad one that he wanted to get rid of badly, so I negotiated with him to sell it for $125 shipped to me from Pennsylvania.

If you've never tried to ship high end equipment, especially amps with their high-current power supplies (read heavy), you'll know that the shipping alone probably accounted for close to $30. Above, you can see the inside build of a Rotel amp of similar power. As you can see; these things are heavy duty! The MSRP for it was $500......in 1995 dollars. 

So, now I have one amp, at a power level suitable for rear channels...at least in my system anyway. Where am I going with this? 

That's a Rotel RSP-1098, Pre-Amp/Processor (otherwise, known as a Pre-Pro). In 2004, it was arguably the most advanced unit of it's kind for any price. Of course, it's $3000 was a deterrent to my ownership of it at that time! Last year, my friend Pat who's still in the A/V business gave me his that had developed an issue on it's digital processing board. All the analog functions work fine, just not the digital processing. Therefore, as soon as I make enough money this summer, this thing is going to get fixed! 

You can see from the back of this thing, it has more than enough facilities to take over as the center of my A/V system!

What else do I want/need to do? Obviously, I need at least 3 more channels of amplification. Very likely I'll target the Rotel RB-976 which is the 60 watt per channel sister of the RB-956, and when bridged, it gives $150 into 3 channels, or I can bi-amp the front 3 speakers instead. There are of course other amps out there, so I'll obviously be looking for the best deal. Anything else?

Yeah, a few things. I'd like to upgrade my CD transport from the clearly "mid-fi" Integra 6 Disk changer to possibly the Rotel RCD-1070 or 1072 and a RTC-950ax. 

What is that, you ask? It's a Pre-Amp/Tuner of course! Why in the world would I need a Pre-Amp/Tuner!?! Here's the deal. The RSP-1098 has neither a tuner (which I still use regularly), nor does it have a Phono-Stage needed for my turntable. With this neat little component, I can have both needed pieces in one! Oh yeah, I'm going to need to get that one channel fixed on the RB-956 as well. 

It's going to be a busy summer!