corky newman

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
4.00 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $80.00 from ebay

Summary:
After buying a great hi end rotel CD player, I wanted to mate it to a Rotel pre amp. found this on ebay for very lttle money and quite happy with the sounds from this little puppy.

Strengths:
Very wide soundstage and very musical. I listen to guitar heavy music and the mids are very important. This pre has the smooth buttery mids I like. The bass is also very smooth with out being thumpy. The hi's can get alittle harsh if you push them but I back them off to almost flat, and its very natural.

Weaknesses:
Its not a very hi end tube pre, I had a Demeter tube pre a few years ago, and the detail was unreal..but I could not play any older Cd's on it as it really shoed the poor quailty recordings...But for under say..$300 its a great little bargin preamp.

Similar Products Used:
Demeter, Sony, Onkyo, Kenwood.

rickc

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $125.00 from ebay

Summary:
This preamp was a excellent step up for me. I got it cheap of ebay and I was very surprised by the detail and sound of this product. I am using Paradigm speakers conected to a rotel Rb 960 amp. I think Paragigm is a good match for Rotel. well worth the 125.00 paid. I would highly recomend it. there are far better preamp out there but I don't think in this price range. I hope this helps.

Weaknesses:
none so far except np remote. You need to step up to the Rc 972 for the remote

Similar Products Used:
Rotel, Adcom, Onkyo

Price Paid:  $200.00 from some gaggy,s house

Summary:
right the rotel pre amp is realy poor andlests the power amps down as they sound wide open clean and jump out there price bracket buy a good pre amp and bridge the amps and you will be well happy with the sound

Strengths:
wide sound stage

Weaknesses:
the pre amp

Similar Products Used:
cyrus xpa

Price Paid:  $300.00 from El Corte Ingles

Summary:
This is, really, a very good pre-amp for those of us who decided not to play records any more (no phono pre-amp included, just CD, AUX, Tape 1, Tape2 and Receiver inputs).

It sounds superbly clean and sharp. I drive my B&W DM-12 using a pair of NAD 2150 power amps in bridge mode. My B&W sub-buffer is auto-amplified.

Using this incredible pre-amp the cleanness of the sound is razor sharp. the sound is perfect and each instrument is positioned in a well defined place. I hear some different kind of musical styles from electronics (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, RMI, FSOL..) to jazz( Dave Grussin, Pat Metheny, Wheather Repport, Miles Davis... ), Celtic music( Night Noise, Hedningarna, Carlos Nuñez...) rock ( Pink Floyd, ELP, Genesis,...) and classics ( Bach, Vivaldi, Chopin, Beethoven...).

All this music sounds terrific in my system. And much better since I upgraded my pre-amp to this small and inexpensive

Some people here mentioned they can actually hear the background nose of this pre-amp. Well I can't. I can hear the tiny sounds of the background in my listening room, but not any hiss or hum perception.( By the way, if what you hear is hum, then try a better grounding for your sound equipment.

Overall, this is your choice for audiophile entry level pre-amp. If you want a remote control then go for the RC-972, which is the same as this one but with a motor-driven remote.

P.S.: Go and see the reviews on the RC-972. Why are the ratings of this pre-amp so high and it's small brother, the RC-971, has some poor reviews if sonically are the same ?

Don't fool yourself, the only difference between them is the remote control, not anything else. If you don't need a remote, buy this one at half the price and get top class sound.


Francisco

Strengths:
Cristal sound, excellent control ergonomy

Weaknesses:
No remote control.

Similar Products Used:
NAD2150, Rotel RCD991 AE, B&W DM-12, B&W SW500

Price Paid:  $50.00 from local store for cheap goods

Summary:
Bang for the buck?

I opened the lid and WOW, it is all empty inside there!
The quality of signal path components was surprising. They were the cheapest available, I guess.
The electrical design is done with three OpAmp pairs. The OP 275 is, of course, a respectable device. It takes care of all the amplification if tone controls are defeated. It costs something like 1$. So High End? Nope. Good enough? Most probably yes. Still, buying a 300$ box to get that and a couple of switches seems (and feels) like a waste of money.

The best part of this preamp is the filtering of the power supply. Lots of Electrolytic capacitors have been used to ensure stable voltage. Good.

Having seen this product I believe the whole consept of having preamp and power amp in a different package is questionable. With 300$ you certainly can get both and loose nothing in sound quality. All the differencies in sound quality found between this (over-priced) and even more expensive products are interesting as this is really low-tech, as maybe most of the preamps.

I'm not going to even turn on the power before I have changed the potentiometers to better quality ones. The switches I'll change later.

Check AD web pages to see what you purchased. As mentioned, OP 275 is the core of this preamp.

Strengths:
Nothing extra in the design.

Weaknesses:
The cheapest components used at the signal path, meaning swiches and potentiometers. Little stuff for 300$ price, enough for 50$, as the box can be used for a DIY project.