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Rotel 1072 & Arcam 73 comparison

I compared these two CDPs at a dealership for myself.

Electronics: Audio Research Pre SP 16, McCormack DNA125
Speaker : Quad 21L
(So amplification is quite nice.
Speaker is impressive one for its price)

In general these are good CD player. However, interestingly enough, they are quite different in number of ways.

In short, Rotel can be described as 'A concert Grand Piano played by a rising star pianist.' Arcam is like 'Upright piano played by a maestro pianist.' The strong points of Rotel are rich in information and more air around the sound generators. Arcam's good at balance. Switing from Arcam to Rotel make me say, 'impressive, a deeper sound stage, full body sound'. Switiching from Rotel to Arcam makes everything smaller, but as you hear more you see/hear things are still there and you are adjusting yourself to
the music from Arcam in a nice way.

Well, I like Rotel better. Rotel 1072 is also well balanced for presending many kinds of music. It is just a bit difficult to prefectly balance everything since it chooses to present full of information and musicallity as well. Rotel is closer to analog sound than Arcam. Rotel is more puchier when it chooses to do that. In my opinion, Arcam uses a very good DAC, but not all the parts in its electronics do good jobs. I think that is where the shortcomings are.

Will I buy Rotel ? Not now, I'll search more. As of today,
NAD5xx, Musical Fidelity X-Rayv3, Arcam 73, Cambridge Azur 540/640, are no longer on my list. I am not going to buy Sony this time, because I own one. My short list includes: Music Hall CD25, Rotel 1072, Rega, Ah!, and, well, Sony etc.
Any recommendation ?

Thanks for reading.
augustine
binkleyc
9 posts
 
Thanks for the post...I believe the Arcam 73 doesn't do HDCD though, so if you are listening to HDCDs on both systems it won't be a fair comparison.

I prefer the Arcam sound myself. I didn't buy a 72 when I got my first system together because the $400 difference between a Rotal RCD-961 and the Arcam 72 wasn't worth it to me at the time. But I liked the spaciousness more than the Rotel's accuracy, or what some might call brittleness.

My Rotel has also had some problems - it had a period last year where it wouldn't play anything for a week, then mysteriously the problem went away. Recently it's had some dropouts, but I got myself one of Herbie's Grungemaster CD stabilizers and that problem has also disappeared (and I got a noticable improvement in smoothness, clarity and a wee bit more of soundstage - almost like an Arcam!) too so I'm happy for now. Probably just needs the head realigned or some such, but it's out of warranty.
vaystrem
80 posts
 
Maybe this will help.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1083534349

My in home comparison of: Creek CD50mk1, Cary 308, Rega Planet 2000, Roksan Kandy mkIII, Arcam 73t, Cambridge 640c. I couldn't get a hold of the Rotel sadly.

My Equip at the time was: Quad 21L, FT Audio LW1S2 Passive Pre-Amp, NAD C350 etc. I've upgraded to Monarchy SM-70 since then.

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions.
zenaissance
39 posts
 
Vertewax, what was wrong with the CDP-10, Moon Eclipse? I don't seem to understand the logic here even though I admire your decision. One thing for sure- you mentioned finding something that would still keep you "happy with the sound"- well after having the Moon and Classe in your system you will never and I repeat never be happy the same way with either a Rotel or Arcam. I have owned previous to my Classe and Orpheus digital equipment, an Arcam CD72T, Rotel 971 and Rotel 1070. Arcam and Rotels are great if you want "bang for the buck" but coming down from what you have owned seems rather illogical. I can understand if you want a simpler system but to me saving that little extra $$$ (not much if you consider the fact that a used CDP-10 can be had for about $1,400- not much more than a new Arcam 73 and there is simply no comparison between the two units) is not worth it.
The source is always changing and to me other from speakers has the greatest influence on the sound of your system. It is the source that needs to be upgraded often while a good amp and speakers can bide for a little while longer.

Good luck in your quest!
vertewax
18 posts
 
Thanks for the response Zenaissance. I completely agree with you about the amp and speakers remaining if done well... and they have. I've had the same amp (although I upgraded it) and same speakers through all of this downshifting. I tell ya, I was not super impressed with the Classe overall. It did lots of things well and was really well built, but it didn't excite me. I found myself listening less and less to my system.

My hold-over-player (the Sony) is more energetic. It is probably doing things wrong, but it is more exciting than the Classe. If anything, the Eclipse was really a top notch player. Anyone who heard it was blown away by it's detail, resolution, ability to find missing sound and music, full-range, imaging, etc. That could have been a player to retire on!

Well, the Arcam is due here in a week or so, so we'll see how it goes. Who knows, I may endup climbing up the ladder again to find something that pleases me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on the Arcam.
hongkongpearl's avatar
hongkongpearl
15 posts
 
How about Cambridge Audio D500SE?? Its so cheap to buy now!!
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