Rotel RSDX-02, Should I make this purchase?

[amirsafdari]

Seasons Greeetings First

I have purchased a set of B&W 602 S3's.

The room is 8ft tall, 16ft long, 10ft wide.

Sadly the speakers will be only 7ft away from my ears.

I will eventually want to get centre channel as well as rears and a sub.

The unit I'm interested in:
Rotel RSDX - 02 ( dvd+reciever combo with 80 x 5 power claim with 0.8% THD

Requirements are that they are loud enough to make full use of the speakers sound, as well, the recievers must look good in a room, prefer silver units that are not black.

I would really hope to get the RSDX-02 because I needed a DVD player too, however the THD seems to be higher that their other products, and nobody has this unit around here, so I dont know how well they will perform.

Rotel has a great reputation with their amps, however the RSDX seems to be a lower model from the rest, and I'm concerned that it may not perform as well as other Rotel products which have proven themselves.

Auditioning is out of the question for me unfortenetly between the RSDX-02 vs whatever.

Thanks for the help,
Also by no means am I an expert in home theatre, so if I've made any ignorant comments above, please correct me

[amirsafdari]

Also, f I went with the RSDX-02, which has 0.8THD which is higher than their other stuff, would there be an audible difference between 0.8% and 0.05% THD?

would it really matter a lot to me in a smaller space?

I would imagine the difference betweens 0.8% and 0.05% to be quite a bit no?

[Aussie Geoff]

Amir,

My guess is that the 0.8% THD is right at the onset of clipping - they've picked that figure to get the output up to 80W (most amplifiers as they start clipping have THD that escalated rapidly to 1% and above. I'd bet that at 65W (or some other non glamorous figure - the THD would be more like 0.08%.

Here is a link to a review in Perfect Vision they loved it!

Trust your ears - listen to it and others on the same volume - and buy if you like it...

Geoff

[Andrew Pratt]

The RSDX02 is a nice product for what its intended to do..and that is look good and provide an all in one package for those people that put form over function. Obviously craming all that gear into one box is going to mean comprises must be made which is why you see higher distortion levels (though still acceptable given the 1% threshold typical quoted). If would say if you have the room for a seperate DVD player and receiver the 1056 receiver paired with a DVD player would certinaly sound better but if not the RSDX02 should provide plenty of power for those B&W's and sound much better then most of the ultra small alternatives.