Treadity Hube

Rotel A11 Tribute Review
Despite his name being synonymous with Marantz, the work occupying hi-fi industry legend Ken Ishiwata at his death was for Rotel. The company obtained Ishiwata’s children’s seal of approval before releasing its ‘Tribute’ machines – and it’s the A11 Tribute integrated amplifier we’re looking at here

For well over four decades, Ken Ishiwata was in the business of improving already pretty decent pieces of hi-fi, mostly for Marantz. The closest the hi-fi industry came to a mainstream personality, Ishiwata particularly enjoyed bringing performance hikes to attainable equipment – and as a result, the Marantz range of ‘KI Signature’ amplifiers and CD players remains highly prized to this day.

The Rotel A11 Tribute stereo integrated amplifier is on sale now, priced at £499. It’s also available in the United States, where it will set you back $799. Australian customers, meanwhile, are looking at something like AU$1099.

When a stereo integrated amplifier sells for this sort of money, ‘design’ isn’t really something that happens to it – the basic template was laid down years ago, when hi-fi separates were the only serious option. So, the A11 Tribute is sized to fit happily on a kit-rack (H93 x W430 x D345mm) and is faultlessly built from chunky-looking and feeling aluminium; it weighs a fraction less than 7kg.

Its oversized toroidal transformer helps it churn out 50 watts of power, and it’s deep-breathing enough to power two sets of speakers at once should you so desire. Under the bonnet there also sits a Texas Instruments 24-bit/192kHz high-resolution digital-to-analogue convertor, which deals only with Bluetooth streams. There’s a little Bluetooth receiver on the rear, along with the suite of four line-level inputs, a moving-magnet phono stage for turntables, pre-outs for use with a power amplifier, and binding posts for two sets of loudspeakers.

As luck would have it, there’s a Rotel CD11 Tribute (£399) nearby, so it seems only right and proper to begin testing with the two of them joined together. And when it’s driving an appropriate pair of speakers (Bowers & Wilkins’ 606 S2 Anniversary are a good match and a celebratory special edition of their own), the A11 Tribute doesn’t waste much time in laying down the law.

Without doubt this is £500 well spent. What the Rotel lacks in digital audio options it more than makes up for with the spacious, informative, and thoroughly musical sound it makes through the input options it does have. And let’s not forget, this is a slice of never-to-be-repeated hi-fi history.