I began with an intimately familiar flamingo CD that was given to me by my lovely wife on our anniversary a few years ago. This is the type of CD that is most enjoyable at soft listening levels in the quiet silence and darkness of the evening. I use this disc to judge just how well a speaker system, or component gear for that matter, can reproduce the subtle nuances of Eric Hanson's guitars, as well as all of the percussions and too many other instruments to notate here. The RCD-1072 was surely a fine sounding CD player to me. What I discovered when listening to this CD on the Rotel system was a very involving reproduction of the disc I have grown accustomed to on some of the previously reviewed fine performing electronics. I did feel the noise floor of the RA-1062 wasn't as dead silent as I have heard on more expensive gear, but it was certainly no slouch, especially when compared to a similarly priced A/V receiver. While it is getting challenging to discern differences in quality CD players these days, it was certainly not difficult to realize the RCD-1072 was handling CD within the limits of the format. I briefly popped in an HDCD sampler disc I happened upon, but was hard pressed to hear discernable differences between the CD and HDCD layers.

Since I have no other HDCD software readily available, I will reserve judgment on the merits of the format or how well the Rotel RCD-1072 handles it. Unfortunately the RCD-1072 doesn't support SACD so I had to switch over to my Audience modded Sony SCD-CE775 CD changer for this test. I choose Gloria Estefan for a variety of reasons {great sound, great music, great WOW factor}. Gloria's voice in " Por Un Beso " sounded wonderfully powerful and crisp. The drums were vibrant and the bass was well extended. " No Me Dejes De Querer " is the type of song you play loud at Columbian parties, or when you have a few moments to yourself with nobody around to yell at you. I had the luxury of the latter and took full advantage of it within the limits of my hearing. The RA-1062 again didn't disappoint. The bass remained clean and well extended. The overall tonal balance maintained uniformity with no signs of distress within the confines of my listening tests, room dynamics and test gear. Overall, my listening experience was not tainted at high listening levels like I have experienced with inexpensive mass market A/V receivers. I certainly felt as if I was listening to separates electronics not an inexpensive receiver or integrated amplifier.

I wont try to lead you into believing the RA-1062 is without limitations or that you can throw your bulking monoblocks away in favor of this little gem. However, based on the power capabilities of the RA-1062, I would recommend its no frills build and sonic signature to anyone looking to assemble an affordable, space saving quality two-channel system in small to medium sized rooms with moderately sensitive speaker systems with rated nominal impedances of even 4 ohms. The RCD-1072 is an excellent compliment both aesthetically and sonically. If you can live without DVD-A / SACD or have another player to handle those formats, it is certainly worthy of consideration. All in all this is the best budget package system I have had the pleasure of reviewing. It rekindled my fondness of the company that introduced me to high end audio and taught me that all amplifiers and CD players do not sound the same and are not created equal. In this respect, I would say this Rotel duo lived up to the reputation earned by audiophiles and the remembrance of my first experience with their products.