New Rotel Amp Vs Older Bryston, Krell, or McIntosh

Maybe think about getting a DAC which will give you a much higher gain, then you can use any amps you like.

I could not say.  That would be the decision of the design engineer from Rotel.

I see the input sensitivity on the rb 1552 MKII is 2.5v balanced as opposed to 3v on the 1582.  Why would these be different? 

@auxinput wouldnt you want a preamp with a higher output gain than the input gain of the amp it’s driving? I’m confused on how Rotel could have overlooked something like this if the components were designed to perform together. 

@shanafee you could have a point.  I looked and the RB-1582 amp requires 1.9V on the RCA and 3V on the XLR inputs to reach full output.  However, it seems the RC-1572 preamp has a very low gain output of 1V for RCA and 2V for XLR.  This is very low because the typical output of preamps range from 1.4V to 2V for RCA.  I’m thinking that Rotel engineers screwed upon this one.  

I owned a Bryston 4B-SST and 7B-SST and also some ST line amps. The new GAN amps from LSA and others are what I would buy for 2K to 3K over the older Bryston amps. I owned the LSA Voyager 350 GAN. Rumor is that they are going to beef up the power supply in the next iteration. Though the current one is rather good. I kept a lower powered Benchmark AHB2 over the Voyager, but they were both preferred by me over the old Bryston.

@auxinput with the gain so low doesn't that mean I won't get as high of a volume compared to another amp because there is less volume to play with? 

And yes, the more I have been thinking about it, the happier I am with getting the Rotel over anything else. It's a good match to my current system and speakers.

McIntosh amps could sound very nice, but they are very laid back.  Neutral sounding (not warm like the Rotel) but are very mild and laid back sounding.  You might like it but it may also be not enough excitement/dynamics for your taste. 

The gain on the Rotel amp is only 26.5 dB for RCA inputs and a very low 22.5 dB for the XLR.  These are very low levels.  The typical gain for amps is usually somewhere between 28 and 32 dB.  This just means that you have to turn up the preamp more to provide enough signal level to get the loudness you want.  There’s nothing wrong with this other than user convenience.  Many preamps actually work better when the volume is turned up higher (the internal gain circuit works better). 

That being said, the Rotel amps have very good resolution with just a bit of a warm signature. I actually thought they sounded very nice with the B&W speakers you havhave.  The older Krell 2250 could come across a bit bright/harsh.

I ended up buying the Bryston 4B SST and was disappointed with the pairing. I could hear faint white noise from the speakers when there was no volume and a faint hum coming from the amp when it was powered on. (maybe this is attributed to the amps age?). Also found that the bass wasn't nearly as tight as the Rotel and that the mid range was sort of muffled. On top of that the highs were way too bright. Luckily the guy is allowing me to return the amp.

So Long story short, I am going to be going with the Rotel RB 1582 MKII since I know it sounds good with the speakers and matches my Preamp.

One issue I had was that the gain on the Rotel amp or output of Rotel preamp was not as high. I have to get the volume of the preamp up to 70 plus to get decent volume when paired with RB 1582, where as the Bryston I was rocking away at 60 plus.

I find this strange since these two components are designed to be together. Can anyone shed light on that? It's weird to think that I could run out of volume well before the amp runs out of gas. 

Thanks again for all the feedback!

My system shares a lot of similarities with what you're after, check it out in virtual systems.  I like my Mac receiver, lots of remote controlled features.  I also like the sound of my Bryston DAC.  I’m sure whatever you get will sound great.  Part of the hobby seems to be hearing a lot of different gear in different systems and deciding what sounds best to you, and of course you have to stay within budget.  I also always buy used.

Classe’ I see often paired with B&W.

Those amps you`re considering are pretty good.

But,

B&W`s are known to be bright. I believe those speakers would be better paired with a hybrid power amp.