Rotel Michi X3

Back in the early ’90s, Rotel was best known as a producer of excellent value, affordable hi-fi. Its budget amplifiers, CD players and turntables were usually considered front runners, and rightly so. So the introduction of the high-end Michi sub-brand at that time was somewhat of a surprise, and an extremely pleasant one at that, considering the exquisite build quality and remarkable sonic talents of that original range.

Integrated amplifier

₹5,60,900

The reviews were raves and a hi-fi legend was born; but, remarkably, those fine products didn’t go on to develop into a Rotel mainstay range. It wasn’t long before many of the engineering ideas from those Michi products found their way into Rotel’s more mainstream offerings, to a point where the company didn’t feel the need to keep this flagship series.

Now Michi returns in a very different form, but the ethos of delivering sonic purity, exceptional build and excellent value remains undimmed. The words ‘excellent value’ and ‘high-end hi-fi ’ aren’t necessarily easy to reconcile, but judge this integrated amplifier by class standards and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the X3 offers an awful lot for the money.

BABY BOOMER

This is the baby integrated amplifier of a small range that includes a more premium one-box, a preamp and the choice of a stereo power amp or more powerful monobloc model. At the moment there isn’t even a source component, which is surprising, or a matching pair of speakers – which is less so.

But when we call the X3 the baby of the range, that isn’t to undermine it in any way. By most standards, this chunky amp is something of a beast. It has a claimed power output of 200 watts per channel into an 8-ohm load and increases that strongly to 350 watts per side as impedance halves.