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The Big Bruiser

Rotel's multi-channel monster
By Max Christoffersen

May 2002

The wheels give it all away. This amplifier is so heavy that it needs small wheels to help owners maneuver the amp in tight rack spaces.

Cute touch, but definitely necessary. Because at 70 pounds, with two (!) toroidal transformers, with 200 watts across all five channels, this amp is big enough to need those small casters.

This is a heavy-weight among multi-channel amps in every sense of the word. And coming hard on the heels of the equally adept (if slightly less weighty) Rotel 1075 amplifier, the question was high on the hit-list: can you really use another 80 watts of power per channel?

From the get-go the 1095 was in total control. Arriving in the system late in the day, I started with what should have been the somewhat subdued sound of the news on TV3. But what I got was newsreader’s voices with new depth and resonance that I simply hadn’t heard before. I found myself reaching for the volume control to turn down what was clearly a rise in dynamics that I misconstrued as volume.
The spoken voice of the newsreaders sounded more authoritative, the weather was positively menacing and even the adverts sounded more dramatic.

In short, the Rotel 1095 juggernaut was ruling the system with an iron fist and no one better get in the way because it’s show-time and the music is the main event. So music it was.

I started with something simple. The spoken narrative of Promises from Lyle Lovett’s The Road to Ensenada is a highlight of that album. There aren’t huge dynamic swings in this softly spoken tune - but Lovett’s voice was caught with so much precision and detail you could hear each breath exhaled so cleanly that it almost became tactile.

The Blue Nile CD A Walk Across the Rooftops is a fine mix of small percussion, piano, formidable dynamics and fluid bass lines. It remains a test disc because the songs themselves are so strong and the recording has such a wide balance. And the Rotel did it all justice. From small details to the depth and dynamic swing of Tinseltown in the Rain the Rotel 1095 made the music come into focus with all the detail and punch you could expect outside of the concert hall. I’ve heard the Blue Nile album numerous times, but seldom like this.

The payback of the Rotel’s power is not volume, it’s detail. The exact control of leading transients and note decay provides a sense of articulate portrayal of real live music or soundtrack event. This is what sets apart good amplifiers from great ones; the ability to simulate reality through tight control of the rise and fall times of each note or sonic event. And that is what the 1095 did. Each note started at the beginning and stopped at the end. No wavering, no stopping, no premature editing.

There is a lot happening in the soundtracks to The Fast and the Furious and T2 but the Rotel retained the fine control and dynamic push that turned these soundtracks into real events. I genuinely felt tense during the car race scenes in F&F only to relax when the Rotel relaxed and went into quieter scenes.

There is snap with the Rotel - but none of the unwanted sizzle that is so often a partner of amplifiers that can catch the leading edge of transients but just as quickly lose control of it.

All stunning stuff that puts the smile on the face and a stack of CDs/DVDs on the carpet as new musical shades and voicings come through from over-familiar music or soundtracks.

Using the 1095 is as simple as it gets. Featuring five RCA or balanced inputs or a DB25 connector for inputs and five-way binding posts on the rear and that’s it. There is no bridging facility so the 200+ watts at your disposal is what you get. And with rare exceptions, it will be enough.

Occasionally there are special products in audio that make you glad you chose music or film as a first or second love. This is one of them. Because the Rotel 1095 will make you swoon with delight as it makes the essential ingredients that make music or film soundtracks come alive as more than a mere collection of volts and watts or capacitors and transformers.

In some 14 years of reviewing audio products, I had never asked the question. But for the first time I did. And it was the Rotel 1095 amplifier that made me do it: “How much do they want for the review sample?”

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