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I know this could likely have gone in the Club Rotel but I wanted to show people that receivers can make decent pre amps in some cases....
As luck would have it I am presently lucky enough to own both the Rotel 1055 receiver and the Rotel 1066 pre amp. For those that don't know about the 1055 receiver see here. Basically its a 1066 with onboard amps and a tuner. I've lived with the 1066 for a few months and have grown to love it very much so I was interested to see how close the 1055 would be if both were used as pre amps. I've now had the 1055 for a little while and have swapped out the 1066 for the 1055 to find out just how closely related these two machines are. A few points to ponder first....one these two machines use identical firmwares which points to the fact that the 1055 really is identical to the 1066 and secondly the rear panels on the 1055 although arranged slightly differently offer the same inputs and outputs etc. It seems that the clusters of connectors are on seperate boards so their layout can change a little with respect to other boards but the general layout is identical. So it seems that the 1055 really is a 1066 with on board amps and a tuner which makes this an interesting comparison. From the specs on Rotel's site it seems that the 1066 has a slightly lower noise floor then the 1055 does but in all honestly I can't tell the difference between the two. Since they're twins all the "issues" with the 1066 are there in the 1055 and since the firmware is the same Rotel tells me that both units will be supported with updates as required. So where does this leave us? Well given the factors of scale and market demand the 1055 is actually priced slightly lower then the 1066 is ($200 less in canada) so IMO there's compelling reasons to get the 1055 over the 1066...for one its got a built in tuner that might be of some use, its got internal amps that again could help some people..the internal amps can be used to power the rear centre so people with a 5 channel amp can buy this to move into the new DTS-ES and DD-EX formats without having to purchase a new amp...so given that why would you buy the 1066? Well it does offer a slightly lower noise floor at least on paper, its slimer in profile, its a true pre amp and costs pretty much the same. IMO both of these are stellar units and easily worth their asking prices.
So which did I choose? Well I'm selling the 1066 in the for sale area located here and keeping the 1055...mainly for the simple reason that I will be adding a second zone upstairs and having a tuner could be useful.
As luck would have it I am presently lucky enough to own both the Rotel 1055 receiver and the Rotel 1066 pre amp. For those that don't know about the 1055 receiver see here. Basically its a 1066 with onboard amps and a tuner. I've lived with the 1066 for a few months and have grown to love it very much so I was interested to see how close the 1055 would be if both were used as pre amps. I've now had the 1055 for a little while and have swapped out the 1066 for the 1055 to find out just how closely related these two machines are. A few points to ponder first....one these two machines use identical firmwares which points to the fact that the 1055 really is identical to the 1066 and secondly the rear panels on the 1055 although arranged slightly differently offer the same inputs and outputs etc. It seems that the clusters of connectors are on seperate boards so their layout can change a little with respect to other boards but the general layout is identical. So it seems that the 1055 really is a 1066 with on board amps and a tuner which makes this an interesting comparison. From the specs on Rotel's site it seems that the 1066 has a slightly lower noise floor then the 1055 does but in all honestly I can't tell the difference between the two. Since they're twins all the "issues" with the 1066 are there in the 1055 and since the firmware is the same Rotel tells me that both units will be supported with updates as required. So where does this leave us? Well given the factors of scale and market demand the 1055 is actually priced slightly lower then the 1066 is ($200 less in canada) so IMO there's compelling reasons to get the 1055 over the 1066...for one its got a built in tuner that might be of some use, its got internal amps that again could help some people..the internal amps can be used to power the rear centre so people with a 5 channel amp can buy this to move into the new DTS-ES and DD-EX formats without having to purchase a new amp...so given that why would you buy the 1066? Well it does offer a slightly lower noise floor at least on paper, its slimer in profile, its a true pre amp and costs pretty much the same. IMO both of these are stellar units and easily worth their asking prices.
So which did I choose? Well I'm selling the 1066 in the for sale area located here and keeping the 1055...mainly for the simple reason that I will be adding a second zone upstairs and having a tuner could be useful.
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