Hi! As many of you know I enjoy audio as a hobby - from radio to Hi-Fi and everything in between. - It has become a tradition for me at around this time of year to look at upgrading as the sales are on and some good bargains can be snared, I was able to get a Rotel A14 and CD 14 Amplifier and matching CD player respectively for just over 2 thirds of what one would normally pay so to explain: I’ve reviewed the Rotel T14 Digital DAB/DAB+ tuner and music streamer on list and that was the product I bought last year, a lovely unit built to a high standard both cosmetically and sonically. The T14 does far more than produce good audio from the Internet, Music and on-air radio however, connected to a compatible amplifier and CD player the T14 can act as a remote gateway thus providing full remote control and display to all connected products via an IOS and Android App so you see where I’m coming from. Unfortunately there’s another reason why I am taking the opportunity to upgrade and I say unfortunately because my DAC is no longer compatible with the new operating systems on my Mac and Windows machines - Rotel aren’t supporting the new operating systems with updated drivers for that model of DAC I’ve had for 3 years - however the A14 - with its built-in DAC is fully supported under Windows 10 and Mac HiSiera and no installation of drivers is necessary unless you want to get into real HD audio which I’ll talk about later. So to the A14 itself which gives out a rated output of 80 watts RMS per channel though this is underrated according to all the reviews I’ve read and the tested power has come in at 105 watts per channel into 8 ohmsX2 The first thing to be noted about this amplifier is that the designers have gone for the old school of thinking as well as the modern way when it comes to connectivity. On the rear you find 4 line inputs and a line output along with a Turntable in. Modern devices aren’t left behind with the inclusion of a DAC with sampling rates up to 384K at 32 bit. The DAC has 2 coax and 2 optical inputs along with a USB input for connection to a PC or Mac thus you can play your music directly from your computer to the amplifier enjoying all the audio benefits of a direct path - in other words the amplifier appears as a Sound Card to your computers operating system -. A USB connector is provided for an IOS/Android device for audio and another for direct charging, - the charging port can be configured to provide power even when the unit is switched off -. Bluetooth APTX connectivity is also bundled in and this is something I’m really excited about given the amount of devices I have round here now that are Bluetooth APTX compatible. So how accessible is this amplifier? Surprisingly very accessible but you do need to read the manual to visualise the layout of the structure of the simple menu system and take notes. Everything here is push-button and there’s a conventional volume knob. A remote control is provided which can be used not only as a remote for the amplifier but a simple remote for the CD player and other Rotel devices. The menu doesn’t have all that much in it and is mainly used to tweak settings such as the volume limit of the amplifier, power off when idle and so on.
------------------------------ This post, like all posts to the Techno Chat E-Mail group has been scanned by our server-side antivirus/malware solution. This should not, however, be viewed as a substitution for your own security strategy. We assume no culpability whatever, implicit or otherwise, for any compromise to your systems as a result of opening any post to this group. Suffice it to say that we remain vigilant within the boundaries of reason. We strongly urge you to do likewise! You have been warned!!! You can find an RSS listing of all posts to this group at: <https://mail.mac-access.net:7025/list/techno-chat@techno-chat.net> or at: <https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=all&q=techno-chat@techno-chat.net> To encourage your friends to join this group, first accept our thanks for spreading the word. Then, have them send a message to the list processing engine at: <techno-chat-j...@techno-chat.net> To toggle on/off Digest (batch) mode for this group, please send a blank message to: <techno-chat-dig...@techno-chat.net> To leave the group, please send a blank message to: <techno-chat-le...@techno-chat.net>. To contact the support address for this group, please write to: supp...@techno-chat.net> ------------------------------
