Adding a Rotel RMB-1075

how about using your current unit as a pre-amp and adding a large 5 channel amp / mono blocks ?

you can never have too much clean power on hand - it adds a certain amount of ease and authority to the music. what blows a speaker driver is when it receives a 'clipped signal' from a amp (amp does not have the current to produce the signal cleanly)

btw, b&w's match beautifully with classe amp's.

I have zero interest in HDMI and video circuitry from an AVR. This is all to do with audio sound. I have an HDMI DVD player connected directly to my Sony Bravia LCD TV and that's more than adequate.

My budget would be around $1500.00 for this next step. Can you name the AVR's that outperform Rotel at the $2K point? I need those recommendations and why. I love the features of the RSX-1057 such as separate volume controls for the center channel speaker and the subwoofers. I use those features reguarly from the remote. I love that the Rotel defaults back to a preset volume level each time you turn it on. This way there's no surprises if you know what I mean. It also has many surround sound "music" format choices, more than I've seen on other units such as Marantz. Marantz AVR's in my opinion are definetly more geared to HT than music. It decodes HDCDs into two channel which I have a number of that I play and sounds fantastic. It has multi-channel input for my newest SACD player.

I've always just wondered if Rotel power is still a bit too polite compared to others. For example, what about a comparable NAD AVR or separates? Would that have more oomph, slam, & punch than Rotel? How would you compare the two in terms of pure audio? That was my experience back in the 1980s and early 90s before AvRs (2 channel receivers) and I guess it's still stuck in my head.

Mono blocks I just don't know enough about and I really don't have the physical room for them anyway but thanks for the suggestion. Yes CLASSE amps are super but probably out of my budget. Again, $1500.00 to $2K.

Signed, confused !!

if you dont mind buying used - the multichannel classe cav150 should do the trick and are a absolute bargain on the used market.

If you are not worried about the new HD audio codecs (DTS Master, Dolby True HD), the Arcam AVR 350 receiver is outstanding and can be had easily in your price range (used here on AG). I haven't had experience with it myself, but everything I have seen/read about it has been extremely positive. Might be worth looking into. There have been several forum threads I read where the poster said they preferred it to the Rotel RSP-1068/RMB-1075 combo by no small margin.

You might notice a bit a difference not going to be night and day it will still be the same sound