Good quality. Easy to use. Upgradeable.

Very low volume, high pitch whine...but Rotel is supposed to have a mod for this soon.

Great sound with music, clear, crisp, and lots of bass without becoming overpowering. I hear stuff in music that I've never heard before.

HT is also excellent. Dialoge never gets buried under the action, and it sounds incredible.

A great receiver despite the whine (which does not affect the sound quality, as it dissapears once the unit receives a signal) and a great value.

Very clear sound even at low volume.

None so far.

Great sound. Much better than the Harmon Kardon. The seperation of channels is perfect. I have 3 B&W 602 up front, 2 B&W 601 in the rear and B&W ASW1000 to bring it all together. These products where made for each other. For those of you who want one product that keeps you from wanting more, Rotel has this for you, go get it.

Similar Products Used:

Harmon Kardon AVR20II

Excellent sound for music and ht, lotsa flexibility

ergonomics are just OK, flimsy binding posts

This receiver sounds fantastic. I hear details in music that I didn't know existed before. I listened to Denon, Yamaha and Sony originally, but all have the distinctive "Japanese" sound... a little to sharp for my ears. Not the Rotel, it's very warm with great midrange and powerful bass. The Nakamichi sounded similar, both are head and shoulders above the others. Lots of dynamic headroom makes for good home theater performance, this receiver can make my B&W 601s scream. I haven't had any of the software quality problems, but I bought mine in August after they were fixed, Oh, and when I want it to, the subwoofer works in stereo mode.

Similar Products Used:

same price range for Nak, Marantz, Denon, Yamaha, Sony ES

When it works... best sound in it's class, lots of inputs (including phono -- missing on newer model) robust build.

Too many bugs and poor quality control

I have to say upfront that this was a fantastic product when it worked.

Purchased the unit in August 1999. Opened the box, set it up and discovered that some of the inputs had already been given custom names.

Hmmm...

Should have heard warning bells then, but the sound was so good (Must have drowned out the warning bells! The salesman allayed my fears so we let the matter drop. In retrospect it *still* smells like a returned unit)

We use B&W 603 S2s at front, 601S2s at reat and CC6 S2 for centre. The combination of the Rotel and the B&Ws is what sold us. Great, precise sound -- more than enough power for our needs.

We started getting the problems mentioned elsewhere in this list, but only intermittently at first (white noise when switching inputs, unit humming, hiss and high pitched noise, etc)

Two things turned us from "annoyed but complacent" customers to just plain annoyed:

We purchased a dedicated two channel amp for our fronts (Rotel RB-981 - sweet amp!) and the high pitched whine and hiss became intolerable.

DTS DVDs became available in Australia and we found the same problems that the US owners had encountered.

The unit was taken back to the dealer for the tech guys to look at and the verdict was that they couldn't do much for it short of re-engineering the whole thing.

The dealer initially offered us a percentage back on the price (70%) but when my wife stated that was unacceptable (she actually just said "No") they quickly offered back the full retail price on an upgrade.

(Australia has good consumer laws for this sort of thing. If it is a manufacturer's defect you are entitled to a refund or exchange to a similar product -- at least that's what the Dept. of Fair Trading said on the phone. You DO have to prove there is a history of faults though and a printout of this list was invaluable. It was good that we didn't have to remind the dealer of this -- good service)

This was the great service (with a slight push!) we expected from Rotel and it's dealers. 8 out of 10 for the dealer (-2 for trying it on a bit with us).

The RSX-965 showed a lot of promise but was let down by quality control. If you can find one for a good price (it is a superceded model now) and manage to avoid all of the problems it is a great receiver. Be sure to test EVERYTHING though as it took us a year to find all the faults.

Very clean, concise, musical sound. Lots of inputs. Great for HT and 2 channel music

None that I have seen

I benchmarked to the Dennon AV-2800, HK 100 and the Rotel. the Rotel was a little more money, but blew the others away in the clear nature of the sound. The Rotel's bass was not as much as the HK, but HK's bass was muddy and slow in comparison to the Rotel, what the Rotel has was quick and clean.

The system works great for DVD's, lots of power, and amazing reproduction. And for music running with the Rotel 971 CD its amazing. The Kimber PBJ cable made a huge difference in opening up the sound stage and I firmly beleive that the Acoustic Energy speakers represent the best bragain for a speaker of that price. The combination is fantastic.

As for quality control, I have had NONE of the troubles that have been listed on these reviews. I love this reciever!

My system includes:
Rotel RCD-971 (Kimber PBJ)
Acoustic Energy Aegis 2 Main speakers (Kimber Cable)
Acoustic Energy Aegis Centre (Kimber Cable)
Acoustic Energy AE101 surround
Sony 355 DVD
Sony 32" Wega
Sony 5 dics changer (for parties and such!)

sound quality

none

I feel compelled, for balance, to say that I bought an RSX965 in March '99, and it has worked flawlessly from day one. With NHT SuperOnes, it makes a compact, affordable, highly musical system with enough power for a small or medium room. The moral of this thread is that there are QC problems, but not every unit is afflicted. If you prize sound quality but are limited to this budget, the Rotel is an easy choice, but you should make it clear to your dealer that if there is any problem you expect full support. If the dealer can't do that, then go elsewhere. This is what delaers are for, and it's one of the reasons you should not buy audio over the 'net. Advice and service from a dealer are worth every penny.

Similar Products Used:

auditioned marantz, yamaha, nad, denon

Overall sound is very good. but amplifier has a problem of tripping when very sharp or big sound coming from dvd or ld or vcd. I ask to company & they send me the page to check my amplifier but still tripping my amp. I use B&W's dm-308 as main, B&W's cc6 as a center & two pair of B&W's dm-302 as surrounds. Subwoofer activates only on selecting prologic or dolby digital otherwise in stereo and dsp programmes, subwoofer is'nt activate !!!!!!!!! Overall sound sepration & clarity is very good compare to yamaha dsp a1. Qualitywise rotel is far better then yamaha. Because of it's tripping problem it's rating is poor by my side.

I recently purchased a new home, and accordingly I kept my priorities in order. The home theater was one of the first purchases - thus the plastic porch furniture in the kitchen. I purchased an RSX965 along with B&W 602 Fronts, CC6 Center, DS6 Surrounds, an an ASW-1000 sub. The usuall source is a Toshiba 3109, into a Mitsubishi 50" Diamond (If the reason for porch furniture wasn't clear before ...)
I did a lot of research before making this purchase and several auditions. I found the Rotel to be very good receiver and it matches well with the B&W. For those that don't know these two companies are working in close physical proximity and are utilizing eachothers equipment at various trade shows. So they have been taught to play very nice together. The amp can easily be maxed without any sign of distortion (Except for the aluminum siding rattling outside the house!)

I was concerned when I saw some reviews pop up regaurding problems with DTS modes and subwoofers. I ran out and got Daylight in DTS to test this out. Although the system DOES kick into LARGE speaker format in DTS the sub does function quite well. I do think they should change those to optional selections, but I don't hear any serious loss in sub effects signal or distortions resulting from this. When the tunnel exploded, I knew it, and so did my neighbors. I also find the sub works well in Stereo, 3 Stereo, and all other modes offering subwoofer options. I purchased 965 on July 31st, so they seem to have resolved the sub issue since then.

I've learned from dealing with computers and systems all day that you research tech support in advance. I contacted Rotel before I bought my receiver and bugged them two or three times to see how they handled my concerns. Everything was addressed quite well.

I can't see anything that an Enthusiast would need that this receiver doesn't have, and the performance is definately up to par. Unless you're looking to spend a lot more money or to get a bunch of useless DSP's then I would recommend this receiver.

This is a follow up to a previous post of mine. I bought a Rotel B-stock (as I mentionned before) and it was good, but it was one of the early models that had the below-mentionned problems. rotel was great in sending out a new 965 to my local dealer, and i was able to use my old one until the new one arrived, then switch there. Tech support was excellent in diagnosing and trying to solve the problem over the phone and via email (convenient for me at work). A+++ job on customer service Rotel! and the new receiver sounds awesome!

Ok, I guess I'm more patient than the other guys reviewing this product. I've had a few bugs to deal with, but I believe this is the best sounding home theater receiver I've heard for anywhere near the price! Rotel has made good on resolving the bugs and has begun shipping bug free receivers that should be in stores in the next week or so. The most annoying issue I had was video jitter and that was fixed by my dealer with instructions from Rotel. Rotel offers a 5 year warranty and my dealer is working with me to resolve all of the problems. I like the receiver enough to wait a couple more weeks to get my replacement. This receiver is a 5 star rating when the bug free version hits the streets. A 4 for now....