RC/RB-1590 review

[Patrick Butler]

Hi Everybody,

A new review of the RC-1590, RB-1590 was just published on Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity that I thought worth sharing. One thing to note, the RC-1590 will play back 24/352 files over USB.

Regards,

Patrick Butler
B&W Group North America

[justbenice]

Dear Patrick,
I wonder the RB-1590 have a real dedicate XLR board input or just normall signal same as RCA with higher gain?

[Alaric]

Nice review , Patrick! Congrats to Rotel.

[Patrick Butler]

Hi justbenice,

The RB-1590 uses a dedicated XLR input board.

Regards,

Patrick
B&W Group North America

Dear Patrick,
I wonder the RB-1590 have a real dedicate XLR board input or just normall signal same as RCA with higher gain?

[justbenice]

Thank you! So what is it difference with a "fully balanced design end to end" that the review mentioned about?

[wkhanna]

fyi link to Audio Note article on balanced amps

[justbenice]

fyi link to Audio Note article on balanced amps

Thank, but i am not a tech man so i just want to ask what is it difference with a "fully balanced design end to end" that the review mentioned about !

[wkhanna]

wiki link, then.......

maybe not so technical, but still accurate....


edit: add utube link

[Audio_ElF]

Thank, but i am not a tech man so i just want to ask what is it difference with a "fully balanced design end to end" that the review mentioned about !

My understanding is that when people refer to a "fully balanced design end to end" they mean that the signal remains balanced all the way through all the gain stages, eq, attenuation then power amp gain stage. The disadvantage of this is that is that each stage needs twice the components and each set of components needs to be very carefully matched - in many ways instead of having a stereo pre-amp you are producing a "quad" pre-amp for example. The advantage is that people consider this "purer" in design.

In designs such as the Rotel (and many other designs people would consider "high end") balanced inputs are converted to single ended, pass through the pre-amp then converted back to balanced to be output. When the signal gets to the power amp it is then converted back to single ended before being amplifier for the speakers.

The advantage of this is that at each stage (source to pre; pre to power amp) noise which is picked up on the cabling is removed as it enters the next stage of the process. The disadvantage is that if less that stellar conversion (balance to unbalanced and unbalanced to balanced) is used, there may be loss of fidelity. In many systems avoiding these unnecessary conversions by using single ended (RCA) cabling might actually be preferable (especially in typical situations where you are running <1m cables between devices).

Balanced interconnects come into their own more when using longer interconnects (such as if you place the power amp close to the speakers and the rest of the system more remote) as well as lower level signals such as microphones.

[wkhanna]

thank you, Eloise

[justbenice]

Thank you Audio_ElF !

[Alaric]

My understanding is that when people refer to a "fully balanced design end to end" they mean that the signal remains balanced all the way through all the gain stages, eq, attenuation then power amp gain stage. The disadvantage of this is that is that each stage needs twice the components and each set of components needs to be very carefully matched - in many ways instead of having a stereo pre-amp you are producing a "quad" pre-amp for example. The advantage is that people consider this "purer" in design.

In designs such as the Rotel (and many other designs people would consider "high end") balanced inputs are converted to single ended, pass through the pre-amp then converted back to balanced to be output. When the signal gets to the power amp it is then converted back to single ended before being amplifier for the speakers.

The advantage of this is that at each stage (source to pre; pre to power amp) noise which is picked up on the cabling is removed as it enters the next stage of the process. The disadvantage is that if less that stellar conversion (balance to unbalanced and unbalanced to balanced) is used, there may be loss of fidelity. In many systems avoiding these unnecessary conversions by using single ended (RCA) cabling might actually be preferable (especially in typical situations where you are running <1m cables between devices).

Balanced interconnects come into their own more when using longer interconnects (such as if you place the power amp close to the speakers and the rest of the system more remote) as well as lower level signals such as microphones.

Very nicely , and simply , explained. That's a quality post.

[Swimmerbird123]

Can someone clarify what the power consumption of the RC-1590 is? The review mentioned above states that it is 800W (!), the Rotel Website says 23W and the RC-1590 owners manual says 45W.

Thanks,
Swimmer

Edit - Oops, the 800W was for the RB-1590 Amp, not the pre-amp - duh! But then the Rotel website lists the Power Consumption for the RC-1570 as 300W.

[Patrick Butler]

Hi Swimmer,

Apologies (and thanks) for pointing out the typos- what a mess. Here are the correct specs:

1. RC-1570. 15 watts consumption.
2. RC-1590. 25 watts consumption.
3. RB-1590. 800 watts consumption (at peak)

All of the above consume less than .5 watt in standby.

Regards,

Patrick Butler
B&W Group North America

Can someone clarify what the power consumption of the RC-1590 is? The review mentioned above states that it is 800W (!), the Rotel Website says 23W and the RC-1590 owners manual says 45W.

Thanks,
Swimmer

Edit - Oops, the 800W was for the RB-1590 Amp, not the pre-amp - duh! But then the Rotel website lists the Power Consumption for the RC-1570 as 300W.

[andrewmr]

I'm looking for something to drive a pair of Sonus Faber Mementos and these are starting to grow on me.

Anyone here using the new 1590 in their system? How much better did it sound than the old system (and what was the old system)?

Has anyone seen these show up on the used market?

[BWLover]

FWIW I have the predecessor to the RB-1590, the RB-1090, and I love it. Had the RB-1080 before that, and RSX-1058 before that.


Bowers & Wilkins 683S1 Speakers
Rotel RB-1090 2 Channel Amp
Rotel RC-1082 Stereo Pre Amp
Rotel RCD-1072 CD Player
Pro-Ject Debut Carbon w/ Ortofon 2M Red (sitting on a piece of slate supported by 3 "solid tech feet of silence" isolation feet)
Rotel RLC-1040 Power Conditioner
Shynyata Research SR-Z1 Power Outlet & Venom 3 Power Cords x 4
Tara Labs RSC Vector 1 Speaker Cables & Interconnects
Primacoustic Room Treatments

[wkhanna]

the Guarneri Memento appears to be a bit power hungry with a sensitivity of 88dB SPL @ 1 meter, according to the Stereophile review back in 2007.
the 1590 should be a good match.
i have a pair of Jon Marsh's Natalie Portmans' which put similar demands on the power delivery.
mine are supplied by an RB-1090 which has undergone multiple modifications.
but even when the amp was in its original OEM state, the performance was exceptional for the price.

[Lex]

very good thread guys. Audio manufacturers usually list minimizing noise with XLR connections in the manuals, while it is true technically. The explanation above that it matters most on longer runs, or in a high noise environment. I can't remember the specifics right now. I've slept to many times since I knew most of this. But generally, for XLR to really be of true benefit, we are talking 15 meter and longer cables. (from there 50-100 feet in length) Then you better have XLR for sure, and not use unbalanced connections. (RCA)

Thanks Patrick and others for your input.

Doug

[BWzes03]

Guys,

I'm currently running a Rotel RC-1090 into 2 RB-1080's for my stereo system. I'm trying to see if the new RC-1590 will be a on the par in performance.
I really like the convenience of the built-in DAC (currently using a Cambridge DACmagic 100 for my streaming network player) and the added sub outputs.
However, I'm not sure if it will be a step 'back' or not ...
Anybody done a A-B between the RC-1090 & RC-1590 who can shed some light on this ?

Cheers,
Walter

[Swimmerbird123]

Does the RC-1590 turn off one of the 12v triggers when headphones are plugged in?

My RC-1082 does, and that allows me to have my amp turn off automatically when the headphones are plugged in. But all I can find in the RC-1590 user manual is this:

"Plugging in a set of headphones does not cut off the signal to the preamp outputs. In most instances you should turn off the power amplifier when listening to headphones."

It says nothing about being able to do that with a trigger, and I'm wondering if I would have to turn off the amp manually each time I plugged in headphones. Can that really be the case?

Swimmer

[Patrick Butler]

Hi Swimmer,

Both 12V triggers remain on when the headphone jack is in use, so you'll need to manually turn off your amplifier when using headphones.

Best Regards,

Patrick Butler
B&W Group North America

Does the RC-1590 turn off one of the 12v triggers when headphones are plugged in?

My RC-1082 does, and that allows me to have my amp turn off automatically when the headphones are plugged in. But all I can find in the RC-1590 user manual is this:

"Plugging in a set of headphones does not cut off the signal to the preamp outputs. In most instances you should turn off the power amplifier when listening to headphones."

It says nothing about being able to do that with a trigger, and I'm wondering if I would have to turn off the amp manually each time I plugged in headphones. Can that really be the case?

Swimmer

[jpearson]

Patrick,

Love my 1590... I do have question for you. I have the RC & RB 1590. When they are both on and I hit the power on the RR AX100 remote to turn them off the preamp powers down. Both blue power buttons are still lit. Does this mean the amp power is actually off??