I have heard people say that Rotel has their own sound but from my experience their sound has changed over the years in different models. I used to sell high end in the 90's and Adcom and Rotel were a couple of the brands that we sold as affordable higher end stuff and both brands had models that were on the warm side they also had models that were on the nuetral side or sometimes bright side in few models. But from my experience the Rotels had the largest variance from model to model in the way their sound changed. It is very possible that Comparing an 80's Rotel amp to a new Rotel amp will not give you the same sound character. Heck even very high end products like Pass Labs are the same way. Pass's ALeph series amplifiers of the 90's do not sound like his current x, or xa series amps.