Are Rotel amps and preamps any good?

funny you bring up the thiels 2.2
i originally powered the thiels 2.2s with the mc252 and was terribly disappointed...but when i tried the 1080 and subsequently upgraded to the 1090 things were considerably different. the rotel handled the very difficult speaker considerably better and brought them to life. since then i use the rotel to power a set of usher dancers which makes wonderful music

So how good is the RA01/02 really? Hi Fi Plus loved it . . .

My first "audiophile" purchase was a Rotel pre-amp/amp pair. I exchanged the pre-amp within a week or two for a more expensive Classe unit, but lived with the amp for a couple of years. I still have it in my second system.

In short, I think their amps are better than their pre-amps. Not fancy looking, but nice big power supplies and clean insides. Really a good value, and good sound. A bit "lush" as others have said.

The pre-amps on the other hand seem to be trying to have a lot of "features" at the expense of clarity. A variety of pre-amps (admittedly, all a bit more expensive) sounded much better in my system.

- Eric

Anyone ever hear of this Rotel amp and preamp.
ROTEL RHB-10 AND RHA-10 AMP AND PREAMP.
I remember Rotel made this amp and preamp in like 93 trying to get highend.
Here's a pic of them.
http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1109557372

Currently my system is based around a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista Integrated Amplifier and I have gone through many brands including NAD, Rotel, AR Cambridge, Mission/Cyrus, ARC, Mark Levinson.
As a spare system, I still have my Rotel RA-820BX which dislodged the NAD 3020 which is coming close to 20 years now! This is running a pair of Mission 70 speakers and still sounding great!

My CD source is a Rotel RCD990 which is over 8 years now. I tested many CD players at the time and during the last few years and I have not found anything below 5000$ with a big enough improvement to make we want to change.