Parasound vs Rotel Amps

@caphill, the model amp was the RB1582 and the pre was the RC1580. I know they were the top of the heap at the time. A friend worked at a dealer and I was always fond of Rotel because my brother had some good Rotel gear in the late 70's. I tried hard to like it and spent a lot of time fiddling around with speaker placement, bass traps etc and I just couldn't make it work in my room. I'm sure they've come along way now because I don't think they sold many of them at the time. I was actually shocked because I've always been a fan of Japanese gear and the best system I've ever owned is Japanese and it's my current setup. I'm glad to hear they've ironed things out with the series.

I had an RCD-1072 and RA-1062 paired with Audioquest cables. The result was an excruciatingly forward, thin sound with no soundstage depth at all. It was very fatiguing and tiresome to listen to. I replaced the AQ with Acoustic Zen cables which managed to smooth the system out and inject some richness and warmness into it.

I don’t know how the newer 15 stuff is, but the 10 series components are cold as ice if you’re using Audioquest cables (which, ironically, most dealers and hi-fi shows use to demonstrate Rotel products).

Sonically and totally the new 15xx series Rotel gears are very different from the old 10xx series gears. The latest 15xx series gears such as the RB-1582 Mkll stereo amp, the RMB-1585 five-channel amp, the RB-1590 stereo amp & the RA-1592 integrated amp sounded fulsome rich warm, much fuller sound and much smoother much more refined sounding than the old 10xx series gears. The newer 15xx series amps have more body and volume and smooth highs and are much quieter than the old 10xx series amps due to much lower noise floor (better S/N ratio). The new latest 15xx series gears have been greatly improved over the old 10xx series gears.

I agreed that the old 10xx series Rotel sounded cold grainy somewhat thin and very forward and can be kinda bright and can be fatiguing at times when not carefully matched with the right associated speakers, cables, upstream components and front end source components, etc. I found the old 10xx series Rotel gears possessed somewhat grainy trebles but I can assure you that the new latest 15xx series gears are nothing like that at all, in fact it’s a total opposite of that of the old 10xx series characteristics I just described, especially true with the higher end or flagship new 15xx series gears such as the RMB-1585 amp, RB-1582 Mkll amp, RB-1590 amp, RA-1592 integrated amp. These new latest 15xx series amps are much more refined sounding than the old 10xx series amps and they exhibited midrange bloom warmth and richness similar to that of McIntosh gears.

As a matter of fact, when reviewing the Rotel RMB-1585 amp for Stereophile, Kalman Rubinson (Stereophile senior reviewer) commented that the RMB-1585 exhibited greater level of warmth compared to his McIntosh MC303 amp and the Parasound Halo A31 amp that he had on hand.

But IMO the Parasound Halo A51 overall is a better amplifier than the Rotel RMB-1585.

@caphill thanks for the detailed feedback. I just have the entry level ML Aeon. I’m thinking next year I’ll replace them with a pair of summit Xs. I was thinking to get the PrimaLuna Dialogue One just to power the electrostats. Since the dialogue one is an integrated amp, I can wire a separate, stereo connection to the turntable thus bypassing the Rotel.

My neighbor has one and wanted to sell to me for $2500.