I have sold Rotel for years. You would gain TREMENDOUSLY in sound quality by upgrading the Rotel to say one of the affordable, yet sonically supperior Jolida Integrated tube amps! And the sound is at least 100% better(if not more) than the sonics you are getting from the otherwise adequate sounding Rotel piece you're currently using! For $375-700(USD)used, you could have more audiophile refined sound with either the 202, 302, 502 Jolida's. My fav with your B&W's is the SJ502 with your speakers, as it has more bass pop and snap! If you are interested in dealing with tubes, it's WAAYYYYY WORTH IT! If it were my gear, and my money, I'd do the switch in a heart beat, and the Rotel would be HIIIISTTTTTTTORY! Sonical, the Rotel is similar to a lot of other solid state integrateds for the money...nothing special really
Options for Integrated amp?
I have heard that I should be able to use my integrated Rotel RA 972 as a preamp and maybe as a power amp. Now my question is if I would gain anything in sound quality by hooking up a power/pre amp to it and in that case what would I gain?
The following is what it says in the instructions:
"The RA-972 has a set of preamp outputs. The signal from the source selected with the Listening Selector is always available from these outputs. Typically these outputs are used to provide a signal to another integrated amplifier or a power amplifier, which is used to drive remote speakers."
As explained before I have B&W 601 S3, Arcam CD72.
The following is what it says in the instructions:
"The RA-972 has a set of preamp outputs. The signal from the source selected with the Listening Selector is always available from these outputs. Typically these outputs are used to provide a signal to another integrated amplifier or a power amplifier, which is used to drive remote speakers."
As explained before I have B&W 601 S3, Arcam CD72.