Are Rotel amps and preamps any good?

Rotel is a good midend brand. This is where I started and I've gone higher up in chain. Never looking back. But if you are coming from popular store brands (sony, pioneer, onkyo, yamaha, denon), Rotel would be a huge upgrade.

To my ears, Rotel has both good and bad traits:

THE GOOD:
-Very good build quality and attractive looking faceplates
-Crystal clear and sometimes "glass-like" clarity
-Hyped up detail
-Soundstage is very forward, like you're in the front row

THE BAD:
-Voiced to sound dynamic (can be good or bad depending on perspectives)
-A bit too forward in the upper-mids/treble
-Not enough wamrth
-Bass is lacking in texture and definition

Another area of bad is that all-in-one Rotel systems are usually set up with B&W speakers. Depending on the B&W speaker demonstrated, it can bring out all of the negative traits in Rotel.

Pair Rotel with speakers on the warm side, and those without metal dome tweeters.

they are great for an affordabe system. I Started with some nice rotel stuff. good value and sound. You get what you pay for. A bit better than most of the stuff in the price point, not as good as some of the other.

Rotel have kept costs down with Chinese manufacture, some of their Power Amps are ok mid-fi products at reasonable cost. The Michi Power Amps were quite good. They generally have a tendency towards being bright. They lack the transparency, spaciousness, air and overall resolution, musicality and dynamics of higher end Power Amps. They have a pretty good rep. for reliability.

The Pre-Amps are best avoided IMO.

Initforthemusic, what did you find negative about Rotel preamps? I've read for years to avoid their Pre's. But I have never found out a reason why.

Is it sonics? Poor reliability?