Are Rotel amps and preamps any good?

It's good for money. You won't find any amp better then rotel RB 1090 with $2k . Don't compare them with Mark levinson, Krell , Plinius....

If Rotel is what you can afford, go for it. If you can afford even 50% more, don't buy it. There are infinitely better products out there for the money. Clearly identify what your power needs are and don't spend money on wasted watts and go for lower output and quality instead.

Elinor,
If he CAN afford 50% more ($3K), what should he consider? Curious to know... Maybe a VK-220 from Balanced Audio Technology?

Cheers.

I recently purchased a Rotel RC-1070 pre and RB-1070 amp after doinng much research. I paid less than $1200 with tax. For me this was a big purchase, my first for seperates. I am very happy so far. I am coming from Denon products so I feel I ahve definately upgraded.

I think it is well known that Rotel makes excellent sounding amps. To out do them your going to spend considerbly more and the improvements are in very small increments. If you want to bring these amps to a higher level you can invest in a better preamp, maybe consider a quality tube preamp. I didn't find Rotel preamps as satisfying but maybe the new line preamps offered by Rotel have improved.