Plans for a universal player?

[Matt Sprouls]

Anyone have any info on a future universal player from Rotel?

[Danbry39]

Haven't heard of any plans for the immediate future, but you'd think they would at least have considered or be in the process of considering just such an offering. Although I don't think that the average consumer is interested quite yet, the market is there for mid to high end enthusiasts. Look at all the interest in the Denon 2900. Mid to high enders are the ones that buy Rotel products for the most part anyway. It's not something that most people who shop for their audio equipment at Best Buys, Circuit City, Costcos, etc. would be buying, but I know there would be a lot of interest from people on this board, for instance.




Keith

[Andrew Pratt]

From what I understand Rotels going to take a wait and see on the whole SACD and DVD-A issue. Rotel really isn't large enough to gamble on researching and building a universal player esp since it would only be marketable to a select group...at least for now. I realize we'd like to see a nice audiophile level universal player from Rotel but I don't think we'll see it for awhile yet....at least that's my take on it...They might have something planned that I'm not aware of but honestly it would surprise me if they announced anything in the next little while.

[eelco74]

What I heard from my local dealer is that most vendors (like Denon and Rotel) were waiting for new quality chipsets to arrive. Until that time they were unable to build a universal player that would meet their standards.

It seems with the arrival of the burr brown DSD-1790 DACS, used in the dvd-2900 this issue is solved. So I would not be surprised if Rotel would develop a universal player and has already plans for it.

You never know, but waiting is always difficult :-)

[Barry Lieberman]

My Rotel rep tells me that a high end universal player should be available in Oct-Nov for around $2000.

This is still highly speculative, and I should have a better sense of it after CEDIA.

Barry Lieberman
Audio Command Systems
Boca Raton, FL

[Andrew Pratt]

Barry I'd be very surprised to see a universal player that soon as its not in line with what i've heard about their plans.

[jaakan]

Last time, I talked to the reps, universal player would be based on someone elses Transport ( I am guessing the Pioneer DV47 ) Like what Lexicon and Marantz did with their universals. I heard early 2004.

[Andrew Pratt]

Barry I just got conformation from Rotel that the earliest we'll see a universal player is this time next year and that yes Pioneer's a very common source for transports in the industry at the moment (there's on a couple that make their own)

[Blue-Eyes]

I wonder if the universal player can beat the cd capacities of the RCD991AE.

I'm allready waiting a very long time on a replacement for my RCD991AE............. It would be nice if it could be a Rotel. But I doubt if a universal player can play all standards very well.




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Never drive faster than your Angel can fly!

[Scarp]

Last time, I talked to the reps, universal player would be based on someone elses Transport ( I am guessing the Pioneer DV47 ) Like what Lexicon and Marantz did with their universals. I heard early 2004.

The Marantz universal player is NOT based on a Pioneer. Just open one up and you'll see a big difference.

Most likely a Rotel universal player would be based on a Pioneer 757Ai, which would give it iLink possibilities, however they didn't put that in the RSP1098, which makes that useless.