Rotel RA-1572 Integrated Amplifier

If you’re in the market for a good stereo integrated amplifier and you’re not already sold on a particular brand, you could do lot worse than simply shopping around in Rotel’s current lineup and picking the model that best fits your needs and your budget.

In the middle of the range sits the RA1572 ($2799), which lacks some of the RA-1592’s oomph (120Wpc instead of 200Wpc, both Class AB) and a few of its digital inputs (two optical and two coaxial digital inputs instead of three each), as well as one fewer line-level RCA input (four instead of five), but otherwise holds its own with Rotel’s integrated flagship.

Setting up

The RA-1572, in either silver or black, is hardly an eyesore, but its aesthetic could best be described as utilitarian, at least up front. Its façade is a flat but thick slab of aluminium that gets the job done, housing the LCD screen, volume knob, source-select buttons, speaker A/B switches, and menu controls.

Things are a little sexier around back. The RA-1572’s speaker connections are chonky and gorgeous, and should accommodate your preferred connection method. In my case, I mated the integrated amp with my pair of Paradigm Studio 100 v5 towers by way of a pair of bananaterminated ELAC Sensible Speaker Cables.