Rotel RCD-1572 MKII

Features

Stereo Compact Disc Player: The culmination of more than three decades of Rotel CD technology refinement, the RCD-1572 MKII is the flagship CD player in Rotel's 15 Series. The RCD-1572 MKII elevates performance by utilizing a purpose designed and built CD mechanism along with other circuit refinements. All circuit components - resistors, capacitors, inductors - are chosen only after their positive contribution to sound quality were quantified and verified qualitatively by extensive listening sessions. The digital-to-analogue converter is a state of the art DAC from Texas Instruments (TI). This very high performance stereo DAC is specifically designed for audio applications such as CD Audio. All this, combined with Rotel’s Balanced Design Concept, ensures the unit will deliver the highest level of audio performance.

• Disc Loading Tray: An ultra smooth motor-driven disc loading tray located in the center of the unit accepts a 12cm or 8cm compact disc.
• Compatible Discs: The Rotel RCD-1572 MKII supports playback of CD Audio, CD-R/RW, and CD Text discs. CD-R/RW discs must contain music files in CD Audio format (not MP3).

Note: This unit does not support MP3 or other compressed audio files.

Balanced Design Concept: Balanced Design Concept is the essential Rotel design philosophy that revolves around three major areas - Parts selection, circuit topology, and critical evaluation. These aspects influence final sound quality significantly and illustrate the holistic Balanced Design Concept approach to Rotel's product development. Thanks to the Balanced Design Concept, Rotel components easily exceed the performance of many mass produced audio products that offer plenty of features but skimp on audio quality, and compare favorably to components that are many times the price. Rotel continues its pursuit of extraordinary audio performance, which elevates the home entertainment experience through their core values of sonic accuracy, reliability, and affordability.

• Parts Selection: Rotel engineers carefully select premium components and parts for all their audio gear. At each stage of development, Rotel engineers listen to circuit prototypes and revise the design when they feel they can gain a sonic advantage by using a particular component from another manufacturer or by specifying tighter tolerances. Since Rotel is an independent manufacturer, they are free to source parts from highly respected suppliers around the world to fit their requirements.
• Circuit Topology: It’s not enough to simply use good parts. Where you put them is equally if not more important. That's why Rotel keeps their circuit paths as short as possible, so there's less chance that spurious emissions and unwanted leakages will corrupt delicate signal nuances. That’s also why Rotel often uses more expensive "on-board" relay source switching, rather than routing a signal from a rear-panel input to a front-panel control. Rotel also relies heavily on something called Symmetrical Signal Trace design. This keeps each channel's signal path identical to the others to preserve the imaging and soundstage. Rotel also uses electrically superior "star" grounding techniques to improve performance because star grounding routes all ground connections to a single point to reduce potential loops that might introduce noise or produce hum.
• Critical Evaluation: Rotel's development team places a lot of importance on critical listening sessions before the final product is sent to market. Rotel electronic and acoustic engineers, both in the UK and Asia, have honed their aural acuity over the course of decades of collective experience to evaluate each stage of product development from working samples, through pre-production and, finally, to verify that final production is the same as the pre-production units. Some sessions evaluate different circuit elements: capacitors, resistors, and active devices such as transistors or operational amplifiers. Others focus on differences in circuit layouts or differences caused by power supply elements. Only after this tuning process is complete with sonic performance confirmed will the product be launched to the market. 

Carefully Engineered Power Supply & Circuit Board Layout: Utilizing an ultra-low noise in-house manufactured toroidal transformer the RCD-1572MKII’s analog and digital audio circuits, function control circuits and CD mechanism motor power supplies circuits are fed by individual transformer output windings each with dedicated voltage and current regulators for noise isolation. Further isolation optimizations were achieved with custom circuit board layout techniques all of which ensures the resulting audio is electrically and physically separated, clean and free from unwanted distortion.

Texas Instruments 32-Bit/384kHz DAC: A premium Texas Instruments 32-bit DAC (digital-to-analog converter) delivers exceptional frequency response to fully balanced differential XLR Balanced, RCA and coaxial digital outputs. The Texas Instruments (TI) DAC is supported by Rotel's proprietary Balanced Design Concept engineering method with custom tuned external analog output filters ensuring an exceptionally precise frequency response.

Balanced & Unbalanced Analog Outputs: The RCD-1572 MKII unit gives you a choice of two different kinds of stereo analog output connections - balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA. The balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs utilize the built-in DAC and plug into a balanced or unbalanced analog audio component, such as a stereo receiver or integrated amplifier. Balanced XLR connections guard against induced noise and allow longer cable runs without compromising sound quality.

Coaxial Digital Output: The coaxial (RCA) digital output bypasses the built-in DAC and provides an unprocessed digital data signal for use with an outboard DAC or digital processor.

Front-Panel Display: A back-lit display on the front-panel of the unit provides useful information about the status of the unit, activation of special features, and track/time information for the disc being played. The unit will also display CD Text.

Front-Panel & Remote Control: The unit can be operated using its front-panel buttons or from corresponding buttons on the supplied IR (infrared remote) control. Specific instructions for each of these controls are detailed below. Most of the buttons are duplicated on the front-panel and on the IR remote control. However, there are a few exceptions where the buttons are only available on one or the other. Control functions include -

• Power On/Off
• Play/Pause/Stop
• Previous/Next Track
• Fast Forward/Reverse (2x, 4x, or 8x)
• Repeat/Random
• Program Track (up to 20 tracks) *remote only
• Direct Access (0-9) *remote only

Rotel Link: This 3.5mm stereo minijack input (labeled "Rotel Link") can attach to Rotel network enabled products with a Rotel Link output. This allows the attached Rotel products to communicate with each other and be controlled via the Rotel App (for Apple iOS 6.0+).

IR In: The IR Input (3.5mm) receives command codes from industry-standard infrared receivers via a hard-wired connection. This feature can prove useful when the unit is installed in a cabinet and the front-panel sensor is blocked.

12V Trigger Input: The unit can be activated by a 12 volt trigger signal. The trigger input accepts any control signal (AC or DC) ranging from 3 volts to 30 volts. When a mono-minijack cable is connected to the 12V input and a trigger signal is present, the CD Player is powered on. When the trigger signal is turned off, the unit goes into standby mode.

Note: Do not connect both the Rotel Link and 12V trigger input. The 12V trigger's power on/off feature will override the Rotel Link feature.

RS232 Port: The unit can be controlled via RS232 for integration with automation systems. The RS232 input accepts a standard straight DB-9 Male-to-Female cable.

Auto Power Off: The CD player can be configured to automatically power off if unused for a specified period (30, 60, or 90 minutes). If the CD is stopped for the specified time, the unit will automatically go into standby mode.