some one tell me.........

I have two cd players, an old rotel 975 that I only use once In a while, due to it being on its last legs.  I have it plugged into my aux/ph section of my cj pv12, I also have an new oppo udp 203 that I play in the cd section of the preamp.  I just happen to play the rotel last night to hear what glorious sounds like for a change.  I quickly notice that I had to turn the volume down quite a bit.  I play the oppo at about  2 oclock and the rotel at about 11 oclock.  is this normal, such a big difference in sound/volume.  am I not doing something right on the oppo, it does the same thing when I'm playing movies.  last does anyone know of a cd player that sounds like the old rotel, I was told not to go over the 1072-1075 I think line.  and whats up with oppo shutting down...........