Sound, imaging, soundstaging

no apparent weaknesses

Wonderful sound quality with tight bass, deep soundstage and smooth highs. Only thing I would like is a bulletproof face plate, but what the heck. For only 1000 dollars, it simply CANNOT be beat.

Krell was fine, but nothing special for 3k
NAD had irritating highs and muddy bass
Sonic Frontier was a little too smooth ("rolled-off highs")

Similar Products Used:

Sonic Frontiers, NAD, Parasound, Krell

great, smooth sound. solid build

runs a little hot

Just picked up this amp from the audioreview MarketPlace last wk for 1/2 retail. hooked up to a Rotel 972 pre, B&W 603S2s and an old Carver tubed CD player and WOW! what a plesent amp. Great power w/ smooth ranges in the mid's and highs. waiting to bi-wire the B&Ws to improve the bass a bit. Great amp for the price. Was looking at Krell and Mac's, but couldn't beat the price vs. quality of the Rotel

Similar Products Used:

Denon, NAD, Carver

Unlimited power reserve, smooth, detailed

Runs a bit hot

When I got this AMP, I don't really expect much from it. Phew....I was wrong, This rotel is smooth, dynamic, and detailed at the same time. 200W makes the music sound unrestrained, all the complexity and deep bassline of the music are handled with ease. One of the best AMP is have every owned

Similar Products Used:

MF XA series, Marantz Monoblock, Jolida Hybrid amps, Unison research S8, and lots more

I had previously had the Rotel RB-980 amp for an evaluation and was fairly impressed although I was concerned that 120 wpc may not be sufficient to drivemy Von Schweikert VR-3s. I currently have the RB-990 hooked to a Yamaha
2090 which I am using as a pre amp and pro logic processor. The RB 980 gave me an improvement in sound quality across the board, although I can't say that the improvement was enormous. The 990 offers yet an additional level of improvement with more raw power. The 200 wpc offers a tremendous amount of reserve and is very good match with my speakers. I have also evaluated an Acurus 200 wpc three channel and my sense is that the Rotel has cleaner sound and better mid and high end. Bass is very close. The only difficluty that I have in evaluating this unit is that I am still drving it with a substandard pre amp
so I'm not yet really getting the full benefit if the 990's capabilities. I do think its is
great value for the prices and is superior to anything else in the same price range.
I would recommend thsi unit to anyone.