Rotel RB-1092 Voltage, etc.

[EmilSA]

My RB-1092 has arrived in South Africa from Michigan, where I managed to track down a silver one.

I have a few questions regarding this amp and I'd be very happy to hear your inputs.

First things first - I need to change the voltage from 110V to 240V. Is it as simple as changing the jumpers on the ICEpower boards inside with the jumpers on the boards, or is there something else that needs to be done? I'm not really too keen to take the amp to the local agents if it is a simple operation. Please advise on this one!

At present I'm running two RB-1080's on my B&W 800D's - one amp driving the LF and one the HF. The amp driving the HF is getting hotter than the one driving the LF and even went into protection once, when I didn't open my cabinet.

I bought this RB-1092 for the B&W 800D's and think I will now have the luxury of some experimentation. I could connect just the RB-1092 to the speakers, or I could use a combination of a RB-1080 with the RB-1092 on either the LF or HF.

Having said that - I initially wanted to put the RB-1092 on the LF, since it is Class-D and it was enticing to have 700w on each speaker in combination with the RB-1080 on the HF. But since I'm seeing that the amp on the HF is actually working harder I'm not too sure anymore what would be best. Please let me know what you think would be best without suggesting costly upgrades to Mark Levinson, etc. The Rotel amps sound just fine to me and I now have all the 10th series amps that I could possibly need, so I'm not even thinking of upgrading. RMB-1095 and RMB-1075 amps drive the rest of my speakers.

[EmilSA]

Ok, so, the RB-1092 has been changed to 240V over the weekend by myself and a friend of mine. This was a simple operation and required two 6.3 amp fuses for each of the ICEpower boards and a jumper to be soldered on the 12V trigger PSU.

I must say that I'm very impressed with this amplifier and think it is a good match for my 800D's. I haven't tried any of the bi-amp options that I mentioned above, but I think it will probably add very little value, as passive bi-amping goes. I'm really quite satisfied with the results at the moment and I've even heard a few things on my reference recordings that I can't say that I've heard before. The sound seems to have more authority as well IMO.

I would still be happy if somebody would care to comment on this thread.

[mjb]

Congratulations on the RB-1092, and subsequently switching it to 240v. I had one of these powering my 802d's for some time, and I was very pleased with the combination. The RB-1092 is a real power house, but also very musical. I wouldn't bother with passive bi-amping either, unless you want to experiment - but, I'm not sold on the idea either.

[PewterTA]

Glad to hear it worked and honestly sounds pretty simple in the end! I'm also happy to hear that you think it's a good matchup with the 800s, I'm planning on getting the 802Diamonds and will match them up with my modified RB-1090... I think it'll be a great combo as I think the 1090 is a great amp just like the 1092.

Great job on the conversion!

[EmilSA]

Thanks guys! I would actually also like to get my hands on a RB-1090 to test against the RB-1092. I was actually just reading a thread from back in 2006 when the RB-1092 came out and the guys weren't very impressed with it. I have made some mental notes of what they had to say about the soundstage, midrange and bass, so I will have to go and listen some more and to some different material. At the moment I can't fault it. But I guess nobody really cares anymore, since this is now 6 years later. At least I'm having fun right?

[mjb]

If you're dragging up old threads, I'm sure you've seen how opinions were split: people either passionately liked or loathed the ICE amps - in the mean time, Rotel's Class D ICE amps have proved themselves, and become accepted. If you have a chance to do a comparison, please share your thoughts and observations here. Its all about the music.

[wkhanna]

Not being one who stirs the pot just for the sake of it :W ...........
but Mike Bartlett from Rotel of America himself admits their class D is not best suited for music.

link provided by HTG member Mikeal in a post regarding the release of the RB-1592

[mjb]

He doesn't quite say that.... From the linked article:

class-D amplification...... produces less than acceptable distortion below 30Hz when compared with conventional amplification

I'm not sure how true this is, and its not really even a direct quote from Mike Bartlett, rather the author of the article.

[EmilSA]

Ok, so I have been playing around for a while now and have drawn one conclusion so far - the RB-1092 does not seem to produce enough bass in my opinion, and this is something I have noticed in some reviews as well. At present I'm running the RB-1092 on the HF and a RB-1080 on the LF. The RB-1080 seems to have much better bass reproduction - I don't know if this has to do with its 1000 damping factor vs. the RB-1092's 400 damping factor?

I'm going to listen to some Classe CAM-400 monoblocks tomorrow that I am interested in. The owner upgraded to Mark Levinson 531H's, so we will be able to compare them quite nicely on his 802D's.

I have been advised to try and get my hands on a Pass Labs 350.5 2-channel power amplifier rather than the Classe CAM-400 monoblocks. Pass Labs is very expensive here in South Africa - I think I should just move to the USA, but that's not as simple.