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Review 2 of 7
Price Paid:
$1100.00
from New at (the defunct) St. Louis Sound Summary:
I began my foray into High-end back in 1995 with the purchase of a Cal Icon MkII and took about two years to assembly a complete system. My slow pace was dictated by my lack of funds so I had a great deal of time to make the selection of individual components. I was also lucky that my local dealer at the time, St. Louis Sound, was increadibly kind and patient with me. I had opprotunities to listen to almost every component in the store at my leisure.
I listened to the AR D120, some other unknown 120x2 amp from a local manufacturer, and the Rotel RMB-100s. At the time, the D120 was out of my price range. At the time, I found the RMB-100s to be slightly bright, forward, and aggressive -- all qualities I liked back then so I took the amps home. My RMB-100s served me for six years driving Thiel CS1.5s. The Rotels were configured in balanced mode from an Audio Research LS3B preamp.
Recently, I sold the RMB-100s and bought an Aragon 8008BB. Now, I'm not one of those "it was like God himself played the music once I added those $100 foam discs to the walls!" type of audiophiles; I know what I like and once I find it I don't messs around too much. But, comparing the 8008BB to the Rotels revealed a lot of stuff I was missing, particularly in the lower end. The bass of the RMB-100s is suprisingly anemic for a monoblock. I found it muddy and ill defined. The Aragon was more laid-back and much less bright.
I also found some "musicality" differences in terms of soundstaging, midrange sweetness and imaging bloom between the 8008 and the RMB-100s. For the most part, the 100s were bland, not really doing anything spectacular, but not screwing anything up either whereas the 8008 did some spectacular stuff and also didn't screw up anything.
For the used market, I think the RMB-100s are a deal but I would recommend trying out other amps in the same used price range. Also, there is a 3db difference when using the balanced versus single-ended inputs. The balanced inputs sounded more open to me so I would recommended your own comparisons.
System:
Cal Icon MkII CD Player
Audio Research LS3B Preamp
Rotel RMB-100 Monoblocks/Aragon 8008BB
Thiel CS1.5 speakers
Tara Labs Ref. Gen. 2 Interconnects
Straight Wire Maestro II speaker cables
Transparent MusicWave 100 speaker cables
Homebrew cat5 speaker cables
Strengths:
Overall Netrality
Power
Doesn't do anything wrong
Weaknesses:
Lack of Bass and bass definition
Shallow Soundstage
Doesn't do anything really well Similar Products Used:
Aragon 8008BB
Audio Research D120
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