Rotel fast became our best-selling brand! After having fickled with Sherwood, Marantz - even Fisher - it was a relief to start up with Rotel. Mainly because the company behind the brand - Rank Hi-Fi - was British and knew all about the finicky Scandinavian electrical safety regulations.

Just to what extent Rank was involved in Rotel, owner-wise, I never completely found out. There obviously were owner interests and The Rank Organisation (they were big) had contributed to both technical and cosmetic design on the Rotel products. Not unexpectedly Rotel was very big in England. All European trade was organised through England, but we got our stuff direct from the Far East.

Rotel had both an integrated amplifier and tuner series as well as receivers, in their inventory. Soon they also brought out preamps and power amps. The simpler models were manufactured at their factory on Taiwan. These series stretched from rather cheap to quite well-built units. Their 600, 800 and 1200 series integrated amplifiers were very well-made, with lavish use of good materials and high-grade components. Shortly after we started out they expanded big upwards on the quality-ladder, by introducing some very good new amplifiers, made in Japan - the RA-1312 and RA-1412. With them came the tuner RT-1024.

Then came an enormous receiver, the RX-1603. This had indigenous design in that the unit actually could be split, the pre and power amp. being connected through a "split-kit". Not a bad idea considering that it measured approx. 50 cm. deep. With the split-kit the power amp could be stowed away in some cabinet. Nominally the power rating was 2x160 watts, 8 ohm, but we measured it easily up to 2x250 watts at the specified distortion. This was in 8 ohms, both channels driven simultanously. Which says something about its power supply!

Their finest models, however, was the 5000-series. A preamp (RC-5000) with a 10-band equalizer and solid handles - 19 in-size, and a 2x500 watts power amp (RB-5000) with very impressive meters and enormous power reserves.

Later came the 2000-series - a sort of down-scaled 5000-series, and after that the 1000-series. This was in a mellow brown finish, the first development towards the simple, functionalistic design Rotel has had till this day.

But Rotel's mainstay was their receiver series. While these mainly were sold with brushed aluminium fronts around the world, we went for their black-fronted design. This design was initiated by Rank. In Norway they were sold under the slogan: "The Black Japs", and a great success it was!

 

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