Not impressed (yet) with Rotel RB-1080

Just hooked up my three fronts tonight"gotta get some more interconnects" and ran em to a Rotel RMB-1075
Running some RTIa5's towers and the highs are a little more laid back but the biggest jump is in the bass/midrange. The bass at high levels can compete with my rw-10d klispch sub. Before they coudn't touch the bass of the sub running them off the HK AVR 247 but it's like a new set of speakers with the Rotel hooked up.

FWIW I ran a NAD C270 through Harman AVR 247 to drive a set of Polk RTi8 and RTi6 (not at the same time, sillies). The improvement, even as subtle as it was and with an "easy" speaker like an RTi6, made the setup unlistenable when I reconnected the RTi6 straight to the receiver. You should be happy.

It isn't just 8ohms that makes the 70's easy to drive, it is the smaller mid/woofers that don't need as much damping as larger drivers.

I do find that my SDAs and LSi15s show the detail that more power can give much more pronounced than the 70's. I now actually drive my '70s with a 50wpc receiver in my living room and the amps are left to do the heavy lifting in the mancave with both 2 channel and my front projection sound.

You are the one that wasn't impressed, and 2 guys with alot of experience echo your findings/sentiments and you still want to trust the guy with 2 weeks here?

Justify your purchase by getting some real speakers for your new real amp.:D

Amps shine when warmed up, cranked, and have some sort of material that would shred your receiver. Its that simple.

I finally started to enjoy my receiver more when I knew it wasn't being taxed and killed by heat. I have no problems running my gear at reference levels for longer than my ears can stand, with a great peace of mind about it. That is what amps have done for me. This makes them worth every $$$ in my book.

Note the wink.............no disrepect to your experience or lack of time here. I find most improvements in audio to be incremental at normal listening levels. Once gear is tested at the extremes, solid designs make themselves apparent and changes are more dramatic. I hope he finds the change to be dramatic, but too many times on this forum, the sweeping endorsement of separate amps and at least 200wpc mantra sets people up for unrealistic expectations.

I always felt a good amplifier shows its prowess best at low volumes, with increased linearity and bass response. All the receivers I've used never open up and drive the low end until you crank them pretty hard, while a nice amp will present the whole image at all volumes.

I certainly don't have high end speakers & noticed a very distinct difference from my receiver driving my speakers vs my amplifier driving them. Some of it is very subtle & you have to know WHAT to listen for. The most noticable difference was at LOW volume. Everything was clearer, distinctive, better.

I had more bass response, better clearer vocals, at a fraction of the volume I used to have to push it with just my receiver.

And as Dennis stated, it is a relief not having to worry about my gear going into protect mode from being over extended by high volume.

All of my speakers are 8ohms & all of them showed an improvement with more amplification.

dbaldus wrote: »

So by "lower end speakers", are you really just saying any 8-ohm speaker? I hope you're wrong and an 8-ohm speaker can really shine with a high-end amp, but if not I think you'll see a mint 1080 up for sale in the next month or so

As others have said...if you have speakers that demand an amp, the difference isn't subtle and you'll never go back. Speakers like the RTi70s don't demand an amp, but improvements should be noticeable at mid to high volume especially...and we all have different ears. Putting a 2 ohm stable 2x80 amp on R50s, put a different character on the speaks and seriuosly improved their detail over the HK235. It wasn't about the power, but about the topology of the amp and what it did for the soundstage creating better imaging (which was fairly poor). Also, the improvements a normal volumes show themselves more with music than HT. For HT, the added dynamics and headroom shine closer to reference level.

Don't give up on the amp without doing some serious A/Bing. If it's still not your cup of tea, someone here will rob you of it in short order.;)

I would expect the Denon to have a little softer high end. I had Rotel equipment for years and it was generally a little more extended and brighter than the Denon stuff I auditioned. But Denon is a pretty good brand too, in a similar price/performance range with Rotel. I wouldn't necessarily expect a huge improvement.

This thread is aging, but thought I'd weigh in since I've also done some comparing between the 3803 and a rotel amp, albeit an older and less powerful rb-970.
I had my older rx-v795a yamaha receiver in the mix too. And compared all preamp/amp stages one some polk satellites and some towers (maybe my rta-11tls? I don't remember which ones I had at the time).

Yamaha preamp and amp both inferior to any other combination, noticeable on both satellites and full range speakers.

Denon preamp section
1.way better than yamaha, and didn't compare to anything else since that was all I had at the time.

Denon amp section
1. Sounded better than yamaha for both sets of speakers
2. Could not hear appreciable difference between denon and rotel on the satellites running above 100khz at normal volumes
3. Could not hear appreciable difference between denon and rotel on the towers running above 100khz at normal volumes (just did this for fun, not sure why you'd do this in real life).
4. On the towers full range, the rotel just sounded better. On jazz or something without a lot of low end it was noticeable but you had to listen close, more of a clarity realism issue than a clear defiency in the denon's sound. On something with very complex and thick bass (Queens of the Stone Age, Beck, Melvins) are some of my favorites for testing this) it really stood out.