Rotel Tribute Series A11 & CD11 Review

Ken Ishiwata worked for Marantz for 40 years. He had a special knack for looking at a simple piece of gear and figuring out how to make it sound a lot better without raising the price much at all. In his last years at Marantz, he became their international brand ambassador, but he was really more of an ambassador for great sound. He believed enjoying music was one of the best aspects life had to give and was passionate about spreading his love of music and great sound. The Chief Technology Officer at Rotel, Daren Orth, and Ken had been friends for many years and both had great mutual respect for each other. In the summer of 2019, they started initial conversations on how they could finally work together. The Rotel team and Ken took a look at the current Rotel lineup and were very interested in modifying the A11 integrated amplifier. It had just been awarded “Best Buy Amplifier of 2019-2020” by the Expert Imaging and Sound Association. The companion CD11 was chosen as the perfect CD player to mate up with the amp. Ken then came up with the initial changes and had prototypes of the new designs produced. In the early fall of 2019, the Rotel team agreed with the new designs and it looked like things were going to move forward. Tragically, Ken passed away in November of 2019 before final production began on these. Rotel contacted his son and daughter to see if they were interested in Rotel continuing with these as a tribute to their father’s contributions to the audio...