Rotel RSP1066 initial / ongoing impression

Well.............

Our current setup is not ideal We have not got any dedicated power amps for the processor so today we are using our RA-1060 to run the fronts, our Marantz 5200 which is leaving us tomorrow is running the other 4 speakers. Two RB-970 Power Amps (60Watt which is the same as the RA-1060 running the stereo channels) are arriving on thursday to take the place of the Marantz. We are also lacking a subwoofer as we sold that this month, we will get one within the next couple of months depending on finances

Well anyway... enough about our slightly weird setup at the moment!!

Onto more interesting things, like the sound (i'm not going to mention how georgeous it looks on our rack, ps yes it's silver )

Anyway we played a couple of DVD scenes with the Marantz (using the RA1060 for LR) and I have no hesitation in saying I am a fan of the quality of the sound that comes out of the Marantz, before we went to pick up the Rotel and playd the same bits again just now.

Is it good... we were surprised about the extra details that we heard. For example in the prologue of LoTR when Sauron *disappates* the shockwave REALLY was a shockwave, and this is without a sub (and this is using the Marantz for 2/3 of the amplification).

In Armageddon when the shuttles jettison their solid fuel boosters we can clearly hear the mechanical mechanism disconnecting. It is difficult to explain but you can hear more details.

I have listened to a few minutes of a cd as well running through this in pure stereo mode and comparing it to the RA1060 with the player directly attached and to be honest we cannot hear much if any difference. It might be very very very slightly heavier on the treble (on the RSP) but i'm not sure, shrug... i'll keep you updated

So initial verdict BLOOMING GREAT

Long term we want one or two more RB 970/971 amps... to keep us going and then the odd RA-1075 might join the amp gang!!

In answer to a question on background noise in another thread. There is none, in fact it is incredible I can hear some crickets in Stargate SG1 that I could have sworn were not there before!

All in all our first impressions are that we are impressed.

Cannot wait till we get the rotel power amps, and then until we get a new sub

Cheers

Steff n Vikki

oh ... there is one funny.... errm some of the functions on the remote control our RA1060 as well as the 1066, so when we changed to "cd mode" and then turned the volume up. It turned the Master volume up on the 1066 and also the individual volume up on the 1060. It was a little loud for a second or so

 

Well done u guys.

Can't wait for your next installment when you get the 2 Rotel amps.

What do you think makes this better The sound and/or the positioning of it when playing a dvd?

 

Just wait until you get a subwoofer, if you think that's good....I think you better wear pampers before hand!

Glad there's no noise- the 966 has that problem.

Had a look through the manual PDF, seems good configurability.

Noticed the upgrade slot in the back.. hmm wonder what that's for?

How's HDCD?- checkout Dire Straits, Dixie Chicks. Sounds great (Tag Mclaren DAC20 with HDCD)


My local dealer has dropped Rotel (the importer, B&W require the retailer stocks B&W speakers, which he doesn't want)

I might consider the same processor.

My processor also has Cinema Eq- try it out on Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart battle sequences, it shaves a bit of the aggressive top-end.

Have fun!

Nathan

 

The upgrade slot in the back... Do you mean the software upgrades?

We have downloaded the latest software update, and i'm going to grab a RS232 - RJ45 dongle tomorrow and build a cable.

Ours is running 2.2.3 and the latest version is 2.2.5 beta, I want to upgrade because it allows more configurability with the Display on the processor itself among other things. Ohhh hopefully found a dongle for it here... will update you later!!

We must try HDCD, we only have the one HDCD disc and the player itself (DV 88) is HDCD compatible so we will have to see if we can spot any difference.

Petrolhead: I'm not very good at explaining this but there is just more detail. It is the little bits. Including voices which are using exactly the same amplification as before. In LoTR when Gandalf is about to fall into oblivion... he says "Fly fools" and the "fly" part of that is so clear, whereas before I have always struggled to hear that clearly.

We have the Avia test dvd thingy, which we got yesterday and tried on the old amp, I will try listening to a test or two from that later on.

*sigh* so much to play with and so little time before we loose all but the front two channels for a day!!

Oh and DTS Neo6 is great fun. we watche part of an episode from Stargate SG1 from our TiVo and it just gives it that little tweak over PLII.

Cinema EQ yup tried that cannot decide if I prefer it with / without it. I like your idea Nathan when we get a chance we will watch the opening scenes from SPR Region 1 and see what they are like.

Steff n vikki

 

but isn't that the point of SPR & Braveheart?

 

On a couple of films the top end is a bit extreme, mainly SPR intro and Braveheart. Re-eq reduces the centre speaker's treble top-end very slightly,

Cinema Re-Eq comes from the THX spec...

"THX Room Equalizer - corrects room acoustic problems. While not always necessary for best performance, a Home THX Equalizer can significantly improve the perceived frequency response and timbral accuracy of a system"


Soundog, can't your dealer run the firmware update themselves? I have seen several processors with corrupted updates.

If you decide to do it yourself, use Windows 2000 (XP does funny things with the serial port)

Checkout this link....

http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_135730_1591crx.aspx

and

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/printarchives.cgi?85

Nathan

 

It's ok we have done it.

We are running 2.2.4 now quite happily, it did get a bit upset with the 2.2.5beta ie it wouldn't do sod all!! which was fun till we re-flashed it to 2.2.4

It was more fun doing it ourselves

You should see the piccy of our very dodgy upgrade cable. well that is one less modem cable and intact Ethernet cable

cheers

Steff n vikki

 

How much did the 1066 cost?

Glad it didn't screw it up!

Do you need some phono cables?

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?ddcablspkr&1048295384



Nathan

 

Was £915 - including 2 pairs of good interconnects (to match one we'd already got).

Think we'll give that one a miss ... well maybe when we get the DV88 upgraded for DVD-A ... but until then ...

Vikki

 

Do people fall for this? (taken from that site)

8 Feet Violin by Concierto, The Absolute Reference Bi-Wiring System ( made by special order only) $10,000.00


Maybe you should trade in your complete AV setup for one cable!

Nathan

 

glad your happy with it Sound Dog. Where did you find the software updates, Rotel's site still lists 1.4.2 as the latest version !

 

Hiya,

It all depends on what version of firmware you have. There are series 1.* firmware upgrades and 2.* upgrades. If you have a 1.* you cannot upgrade to 2 from what I can make out.

Anyway, the information on this comes from the rotel board on www.htguide.com

The specific site / url to download updates is...

Http://www.mts.net/~glendap/rotel.htm

Hope that helps.

One of the best bits of 2.2.4 is that you can turn off the sub completely now on inputs instead of just setting to max or min.. can't remember which one of the two.

I cannot wait until tomorrow night so that we can play with the power amps we are getting.

Steff n vikki

EDIT: The bit I said about it all depends on which version is rubbish... yes there are different versions, but they are both available on that website so I was just talking rubbish really.

 

Soundog, you have a PM.

 

To fill in what Steff said ... it's my understanding that v1 processors had limited bandwidth on the component video switching. The v2 of the RSP1066 increased the bandwidth to 200MHz (I think it's MHz ... it's 200<somthing>Hz anyway) to allow prog scan HDTV.

Vikki 'n' Steff

 

I thought it went from 10htz to 100htz and the new RSP1098 will be 200htz.

But I could be wrong

 

Stop saying RSP1098, it makes me come over all unnecessary

 

Sorry, how about if I put it in code.

 

I won't argue Petrolhead cause I'm not really sure and can't quickly find anything in HT Guide.

Anyway ... just to let you know that the RSP1066 sound find in 2ch too as our Marantz SR5200 (which was amping the surround speakers) has now gone :-( 2x RB970's arrive tomorrow though

 

Well as we cannot have a 1098 I was thinking of buying a 5" or 7" lcd panel on ebay for sub £100 and attach that to composite video output. It isan't quite the same

It's sort of close

Steff

 

Steff, you've got a PM

 

Right then ...

If you didn't already know ... tonight we picked up 2 RB-970BX MkII poweramps (thanks Chris Frost).

Well without a doubt these are an improvement over the Marantz for power amplification ...

Everything is just so clear and detailed ... yet not so detailed as to make watching and listening a chore.

Just watched the "classic" test scene from the Matrix (the lobby bit) and the explosion itself is just wonderful ... instead of the flames rumbling that they have done every other time I've watched it, the flames are alive and so much more fluidic. (Is it just me or did that sound weird to say).

Suffice to say ... you all need to get one of these processors with some good amplification. All we need now is 3 more RB-970BX (to bi amp front 3 channels).

Vikki 'n' Steff
"
Edit Steff: ---> oyy Vikki that was a bit pretentious "yet not so detailed as to make watching and listening a chore". I think you have been reading far to many audio magazines.

Personally I think it sounds b£^&$y great!!

 

Vicki/Steffi

Checkout Imax Super Speedway- fanastic pans as Indy cars overtake/undertake, great sub test (when the car goes upto speed, and changes lanes)

I've never thought much of The Matrix sound mix (I think it uses a lower DD bitrate)

Nathan

 

Stop it u guys. You are tempting me more and more. If you continue I will have to report you to the Mods and get u banned

If only u lives closer to Newcastle I could, sent the boys round -- no no what I mean come round for a listen

 

Awwww petrolhead,

Just as I was going to say come round and play with our 1066, bring a 985 with you so we could hear how they sound together, and you would have a lovely chance to hear the 1060.... us wind you up NEVER

Steff n vikki

 

S & V, what does that RJ45 connector do? multi-room?


Nathan

 

Think the RJ45 is for upgrading the Software.

 

I thought the upgrade port is the one next to Component inputs?

 

Correct.

Apparently it can also I have been told used with a Crestron, AMX, etc... controller



Steff

Edit: The covered port hides two dip switches which need to be set to on, to enable upgrades. In this mode the processor will not work. So after upgrade you need to reset the dip switches to their original configuration.

 

Only had my 1060 for 8 months, you'd think I knew what all the bit's were by now !

Learn something new every day.

 

Hi Slingshot,

Did you know that if you hold down the mute button for about 5 seconds or so on the remote then the display on your 1066 shows what version of the software you are running.

ps if you need it we can email you 2.2.4 firmware.

Cheers

Steff n vikki