Tips for warming up Rotel + B&W system?

I would try Van Den Hul carbon fibre interconnects [The First or First Ultimate]Also solid core copper speaker cables.
The lesson?Never buy a system until you have heard it in your room.

JT

I think I am beginning to sound like a locked groove: Look to your room acoustics. What may seem like subtle changes in setup and treatment can have huge effects, well out-distancing anything due to break-in and/or cabling.

Kal

The Rotel 1072 is a hard/coarse/very-digital sounding CD Player. This Player has no warmth whatsoever. The Rotel Pre-Amps & Amps aren't quite so bad. I could not get Rotel electronics to sound good with either my N804s or N803s in a room with good acoustics. I did have good success with the top-of-the-line Marantz Players with the Rotel Pre-Amp & Amp. I finally spent the $$$ and bought the Krell SACD Standard + KAV-400xi and it was a hugh difference, completely transformed the B&W Speakers (detail/warmth/natural-sounding/bigger-deeper-soundstage, etc.).
The bottom-line is that regardless of what the Dealers tell you, B&W Speakers need good electronics, more so than most of their competitors. Krell, Classe, Mark Levinson, Musical Fidelity all work very-very-well with your Speakers and as you will see are worth the imvestment.

I've heard Rotel + B&W combos many times as they always seem to be on display together. I'd say they are a good match since the aggressive tweeter is tempered somewhat by Rotel's laid back approach. It's not your gear! The thing is the room where you audtioned was sound treated and probably didn't have any large reflective surfaces like windows or hard wood floors. You need to absorb some of those high frequency reflections which give B&W's a bit too much sizzle. Rugs are a must as are drapes which can be used to cover an entire window. If the room is solely dedicated to audio and not esthetic I'd go with actual sound proofing gear. This is usually not an option though given the price and look of some of these items. The easier/cheaper approch might be to swap out the B&W's for something with a soft dome tweeter.

I tried upgrading power cords and speaker wire. Sound is now somewhat warmer and fuller but still emotionally uninvolving. Dr. Lou, I haven't heard anyone describe the 1072 as you have. It was the first piece of upgraded gear I added to my old Nakamichi RE-1 and B&W P5 setup, and it was definitely a very musical addition to my ears-- certainly not hard or coarse. So, I tend to believe, that for my ears, at least, that's not where the problem likely resides. I'm going to try some different, more powerful amps. When I listen to the Rotel amp and cd player through Grados, the sound is still on the chilly side for me, which would seem to suggest the amp is contributing the coolness. Thanks for all the suggestions!