Best Amp?

[rotelnut]

Would like to know if switching from rb 1070 to rb 1080 to drive my monitor audio gr20s ,would i get more bang for my bucks or stay with 1070?

[PewterTA]

You'd get more bang for your buck, though how much would depend on you. There's a difference, I don't know how much of a difference though, enough to completely justify full price... may not be.

But if you can sell your 1070 and get the 1080 at a good price then I think it's a solid choice.

I just did a modification to the 1080, 1090, 1095 by solidering all connections with WBT Silver Soldier and the difference is very very noticeable. I'm doing the same thing for WKHanna's RB-1090 (I gave him my 1080 to use and he was so impressed with the difference that he immediately gave me his 1090 to do the same thing on).

If you have some half decent soldering skills and aren't afraid to take things apart and put them back together... this is a very, VERY worth while and somewhat easy mod!

I'm thinking of writing up what all I did and posting it here. This might be an option for you to improve the quality of sound on your 1070....if you don't want to purchase a 1080.

[function12]

Woudl love to see the write up.

[wkhanna]

After just one day with Dan's moded 1080 in my system, I told him to keep my 1090 for as long as he wanted. I not only did not miss it, but Dan's 1080 actually sounded better!

At this point, I’ve had it in my system 5 days. The mids are more ‘real’. It’s not a ‘sound’ or texture. They just sound more like instruments that are in the room. And voices? I’ve never heard voices this realistic. One female voice in particular sounded slightly gruffer, not smother. There was more ‘throat’, more vocal chord vibrating. As though information that was always there had never before gotten the chance to get thru. It just sounds more real. One of our friends brought his Cary tube pre over a while ago. When inserted in my system, it was pure magic. Smooth, quiet, silken and sensual. Dan’s moded 1080 is V similar in its affect, but retains and improves my systems detail at the same time.

The highs are sweater, clearer, better detailed. Sticks on rims, for example sound far more palpable.

The low frequency is surprising. Or should I say SURPRISING. Only the most demanding of passages would show the lack of headroom provided by the 1090’s 380 wpc duel mono block reserve of power. Additionally, there is cleanness, an improvement in musicality that the 1090 just doesn’t exhibit.

Sustain is improved, also, and especially noticeable in the micro-dynamic range.

Depth is similar if not unchanged, and I noticed no difference in soundstage width, though I personally don’t put a large emphasis on soundstage width. Depth and imaging are far more important to me.

There is quickness to this amp, too. Its response gives music a sense immediacy. Your never left waiting for something you know is supposed to be there.

It is V perplexing that a few simple mods (remember that no components were changed, only the electrical connections upgraded) would have such a dramatic effect. If I’m not mistaken, the 1080 sold for less than half the cost of the 1090.

I have often heard of the performance sacrifices suffered at the need to design to a price-point, but I have never seen it displayed in such dramatic fashion as this! The other thing this little experiment has shown is the apparent value of point-to-point assembly technique.

All in all, quite interesting. And I can’t wait to get my ‘reborn’ 1090 back! When I do, I'll have to give it (and Dan) a Tebow salute.


My 1090 about 10 minutes after Dan gets it to his place.



After the mods are complete, time for 'burn-In'

[madmac]

Nice write up and great descriptive writing on sound perception. Only one comment though...........

Depth and imaging = soundstage !!!

[wkhanna]

Sorry for the confusion, Madmac.

My personal definition of soundstage is the perceived width of the overall presentation.
In other words, just how far beyond the outside of the speakers the presentation seems to stretch.

I find the general term 'Soundstage' too vague and encompassing too many individual characteristics to be useful when trying to make detailed descriptions of my perception of reproduced audio. I will strive to be more accurate in the future and simply drop the use of the term from my lexicon from now on.

BTW, from Wiki:

"Soundstage" of an acoustical recording

The term soundstage refers to the depth and richness of an audio recording and usually relates to the playback process. According to audiophiles, the quality of the playback is very much dependent upon how one is able to pick out different instruments, voices, vocal parts, and such exactly where they are located on an imaginary 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional field. The quality of this soundstage can enhance not only the listener's involvement in the recording, but also their overall perception of the stage.

[rotelnut]

Re-best amp

Thanks for the response, i love my rb 1070 but would love to have a little more headroom, i thought maybe the 1080 would do my system justice , the MA gr20s are a little power hungry,but even with the 1070 they sound exellent,but there is room for improvement, also even thought about the 1090!,What do you think , Here is my set-up,
RCD 1072
RC 1070
RB 1070
MA GR20S
AQ CHEETAH
AQ COBRA
AQ ROCKET 88
PANGEA POWER
PS COND

[wkhanna]

Based on my personal experiences, I would recommend selling the 1070, buying a used 1080, and eventually having the termination upgrade performed.

As always, JMHO YMMV

[madmac]

Sorry for the confusion, Madmac.

My personal definition of soundstage is the perceived width of the overall presentation.
In other words, just how far beyond the outside of the speakers the presentation seems to stretch.

I find the general term 'Soundstage' too vague and encompassing too many individual characteristics to be useful when trying to make detailed descriptions of my perception of reproduced audio. I will strive to be more accurate in the future and simply drop the use of the term from my lexicon from now on.

BTW, from Wiki:

"Soundstage" of an acoustical recording

The term soundstage refers to the depth and richness of an audio recording and usually relates to the playback process. According to audiophiles, the quality of the playback is very much dependent upon how one is able to pick out different instruments, voices, vocal parts, and such exactly where they are located on an imaginary 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional field. The quality of this soundstage can enhance not only the listener's involvement in the recording, but also their overall perception of the stage.

Yep....The WiKi definition sounds good. To be even more basic, Good soundstaging by a system means that with your eyes closed, you can pick out where all the musicians are standing as well as their instruments clearly, like you were actually there!. However, I find this phenomenon is equally reliant on the quality of the recording as it is on the quality of one's system and it's setup!! :T

[rotelnut]

Rb 1080?

Is anybody willing to part with their rb 1080, Would like to find one in black.

[wkhanna]

We have a 'Pawn Shop' section were you can post 'wanted' and 'for Sale' items. Also, online places like Audiogon are sometimes good for locating specific equipment.

[PewterTA]

Bill,

Thanks for the nice write up! Excellent review as always, and thank you for the kind words. I agree with your summation of the changes to the 1080. I always put the 1080 in class with my 1095, not the 1090.... now I think the 1080 bests an 'unmodified' 1090. Then when you upgrade the 1090, it's the same detail upgrades...which then puts the 1090 back into it's rightful "best" of Rotel's amps!

I can't wait to think what you think of your 1090 after you've listened to it for a few days. I know the initial getting the amp back is like... wow... it sounds just like the 1080 (but with more low end information)....but that's also what we're going for!

I think some of your nice Jazz vinyl will really start to stand out and sound amazing!

For anyone wondering, all I'm doing is using WBT silver to solder the wire to the "O" ring connectors. Then on any "screw" connections, I'm just adding Deoxit Gold to those connections. That's it. I never thought the improvement would be as much as it is...but well... it is!

I'd LOVE to have a extra 1090 and actually solder everything together, but I'm not sure how much (if any) that would really improve it. I think without going out and buying much better components to replace on each channel... there's not much more that could be done.

And for this only taking about 4 hours total (just because of all the moving the amp around and being careful not to damage anything) with some patience and about $20 for the solder... I think it's a well worth upgrade that just about anyone could do.

I'm just happy Bill's enjoying the improvement in his system, it's always good to sit there and watch as he's just baffled by how things like this can change the way his system sounds (for the better).

Oh yeah I also did this to my 1095, 1080 (obviously), 1090, RSP-1098, and Cambridge Audio 840c. I'm thinking of taking my APC S15BLK conditioner and doing the same to it... maybe it'll help?!

Doing everything has definitely made a very nice change to my sound in a much better way!

[Alaric]

If I ever get my gear back I intend to follow your lead on this. It's not Rotel , but I look forward to trying it out on my Marantz.

[wkhanna]

These mods are Not brand specific. They should deliver similar results on any gear.

[PewterTA]

Wait... you mean other brands can benefit from this as well!?!?!? :O :P HA HA.

I agree, I heard a little bit of a difference on the Cambridge Audio 840c CDP... there wasn't much to be done to it as there's only a few wires even in the thing (it's all circuit boards), but the wires going to the torodial transformer were the major ones and I think it improved it slightly.

There were some 24g or smaller wires that I didn't even attempt because they looked like they wanted to just break off. ha ha.

[dan87951]

The RB-1080 is a good amp for the money on the used market. I had a few and there is actually two versions of them. Ones with 8 clear binding posts (newer) and one with the cheaper 4 plastic black/red (older) binding posts. Don't think you can do much better than this amp on the used market unless you found a HK Signature 2.1 or 1.5 (rare)! I did hear the Rotel's had some issue with some board so might want to look into that since these are pretty much all out of warranty or close to it!

[wz2p7j]

I'll Bite

Location: "Look at my avatar and guess"

OK, I'll bite - I think your from a town with a 5th place hockey team right before the all star break. :roflmao:

OK - now you guess where I'm from.

Chris

[srb]

The RB-1080 is a good amp for the money on the used market. I had a few and there is actually two versions of them. Ones with 8 clear binding posts (newer) and one with the cheaper 4 plastic black/red (older) binding posts.

There were actually three versions. I had the second version in between the two versions you mentioned, with 4 clear binding posts. There is an RB-1080 potential problem of blowing the left channel fuse in conjunction with using the 12V trigger, but I have not been able to tie it to a specific version. Some people experienced the problem with my version 2, but others didn't and I never had a problem with mine.

Steve

[Fishy]

Think I need to get Pewter (Dan?) over to the UK to do my RMB-1095. Unless you could post some detailed pics of the re-soldiered parts.

Fish

[PewterTA]

Location: "Look at my avatar and guess"

OK, I'll bite - I think your from a town with a 5th place hockey team right before the all star break. :roflmao:

OK - now you guess where I'm from.

Chris

My team is better than yours.

[PewterTA]

Fish...

First I would have a camera/camera phone ready and at each step you disassemble, take pictures of everything so you can easily put it back together... that's my biggest tip I can make to you.

All you need is WBT Silver Solder and Deoxit Gold G100L

I'm doing this from memory so I might miss or add a screw or two...

To take the amp apart. Top cover comes off first, there's two screws up front on top, three on each side, and 6 (I believe) on the back to take the top off. Once that's off, the front comes off next with 5 screws on each side (left and right) and 6 across the bottom front. You'll have to unplug the LED cables. If you look at the BACK of the front heat sink there are 8 screws that hold the center cover on. Undo them and there are 2 screws for the power button (behind the front cover). After that the front comes off.

Wait, the 1095 has the Center channel on the front right (while looking at the front of the amp) and the left side has a couple connections (2) that need disconnected to get the front off completely.

Once that's off, I believe the left and right heatsinks have 5 or 6 screws on each side across the Left and right side near the bottom and 4 going up the back end. Then there's 4 or 5 screws on the bottom. Disconnect the cables to remove them.

Then all I did was on each cable, where they crimped the "O" ring connector onto the wire, I soldered the wired to the "O" ring connector with the silver solder. Every single wire in the amp. Some of them have a plastic cover that you have to cut away to get into to solder, but then just either put them back on and use electrical tape or heat shrink them. Any of the connections that I couldn't solder together like the connectors to the speaker binding posts. I took them all apart (just a couple nuts on a threaded post) and put deoxit gold on all metal touching metal connections. Reassembled and that was it. The noticeable difference in sound is as soon as you fire it up.

If you want to do it, I can give you my e-mail or instant messager and help along the way!

Off topic: Bill just stopped over tonight and I think I completely impressed him with the change in my system and how musical it's gotten compared to when he first came over. I also blew his mind with the best sounding version of Miles Davis - Kind of Blue he's ever heard in his life!!!

[PewterTA]

Sorry the picture isn't the best, it's from my phone...but this gives an example of the soldering work I did to the connections.