New to the Rotel 15 Series of hi-fi components are the £1195 RA-1570 stereo amplifier (above) and £695 RCD-1570 CD player (see below).
A Bluetooth USB dongle supplied as standard with the amp means the RA-1570 can handle music streamed from most smartphones and tablets. There's also a front-mounted USB socket for easy connection of portable devices including iPhones, iPads and iPods.
Playback of high-resolution music files up to 24-bit/192kHz is supported by the rear asynchronous PC-USB input (common in standalone DACs but rare in amplifiers) and by two optical and two coaxial digital inputs – ideal for connecting external streaming devices. There's also a choice of analogue RCA and balanced XLR inputs.
More traditional aspects of the design include a Wolfson WM8740 stereo DAC (digital-to-analogue converter), and Class AB amplification delivering a claimed 120W per channel into 8 Ohms.
The partnering RCD-1570 CD player uses the same Wolfson DAC as the amplifier, has a slot-loading disc mechanism and, like the amp, was created using Rotel's Balanced Design Concept. This uses carefully chosen components, optimised signal paths and 'critical evaluation' to fine-tune the performance throughout the development cycle.
Key components used in the Rotel 15 Series include custom toroidal transformers in the power supplies, T-Network capacitors and Slit-Foil capacitors.
