TRUE STORY. My very first hi-fi system featured a Rotel integrated amplifier—if memory serves, a model RA-20 of some 20 watts per channel. I bought it brand new for around $60 from K&L Sound in Watertown, Massachusetts, with money saved from my after-school job building shelves, sweeping floors, and punching holes in sheet-metal panels that would become the very first ARP synthesizers. (The late Alan R. Pearlman was my next-door neighbor and a lovely, kind, brilliant guy.)
With a pair of old Electrovoice speakers inherited from my employer and a Garrard turntable harvested from an abandoned console, that little Rotel served me through college and beyond. It was compact, simple, and unadorned, with screw-terminal speaker outputs and, if I remember right, four inputs, including both “Mag” and “Xtal” phono jacks—so much tech! I wish I could remember what became of it, but I like to think that somewhere it’s still playing music.
Back then, Rotel was an all but unknown, mostly O.E.M. Japanese audio electronics manufacturer, relegated to the lower shelves beneath the flashier Kenwood and Sansui models. Fast-forward a few decades—okay, more
