Hands on: Rotel Michi Prestige X430/Q430 review
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Michi’s revival back in 2019 after a 26-year hiatus saw impressive results for Rotel’s high-end brand.
We’ve spent some quality time with a few members of the Michi family since its return, including the Q5 CD player (£5499 / $7499) and the X3 stereo amplifier (£4700 / $5300), both of which impressed our review team.
Step forward the new Rotel Michi Prestige Series, which includes two products at launch: the X430 (£4499 / €4999 / $4999) stereo amplifier and the Q430 (£3599 / €3999 / $3999) CD player.
I was recently invited to the company’s Chinese headquarters and factory for a first look, where I was also able to hear a couple in action – and in my first acquaintance at least, the first signs are very promising.
Build it
After seeing them assembled on the factory floor and around the Rotel demo room, both units look and feel like Michi products – clearly part of the same family.
Both the aluminum chassis look and feel well put together, the all-black design is nicely understated and, combined with the toughened glass front panels on the X430 and Q430, seeing the two together is a good-looking pair.
Rotel has gone from a top-loading CD player design on its Q5 to a loading cabinet on the Q430, but the machine seemed smooth sliding in and out, while the curved volume dial on the X430 felt firm to the touch and resisted sliding when twisting.
Features
The X430 has solid specs and features a high-end ESS Technology ES9039Q2M DAC.
If you want the amplifier to take care of the sound from your TV, there’s an HDMI ARC socket while you have a robust range of traditional connection options, including three pairs of analogue inputs and a balanced input.
There’s also a moving magnet phono stage for a compatible record player (although it would have been nice to have a moving coil option, though), three optical digital inputs and a coaxial digital input.
Play a lot of music on your laptop? You can use the USB-C input of the amp, which is compatible with DSD, PCM and DoP files.
If you want to stream the odd song from a smartphone or tablet, there’s also aptX Bluetooth connectivity.
Completing the spec sheet, you have twin subwoofer outputs and two pairs of terminals for driving two separate pairs of speakers.
The glass front panel includes a customizable full-color TFT display, which includes the option to select between Spectrum or VU meter views. During my time with the amp there was a small bug in the software while in VU meter mode so it was hard to make a call on the quality of the display.
The Michi Q430 CD player also features a TFT display, which can display album artwork in addition to standard track information. You’ll also find an illuminated power button (it should be white, but the test sample I saw had a green ring) and control buttons to operate the player on the front of the unit.
It uses an eight-channel 32-bit ESS Saber ES9028PRO DAC, optimized for stereo playback.
In terms of connectivity, you both have balanced XLR and RCA outputs to choose from, but Rotel has added more flexibility by including integrated digital outputs. This means you can choose to use it as a CD transporter if your system includes a suitably high-end DAC.
Both machines feature Rotel’s in-house developed power converter and use custom capacitors and ultra-low noise power supplies to improve performance.
The sound
The X430 is capable of outputting 210W per channel into an 8-ohm load, and in my demo with speakers, it was powering Bowers & Wilkins 802D floorstanders. On the side, waiting to be accessed if needed, were the neat looking towers of the Sonus Faber Amati.
Now I have to add a few caveats here: I was listening to a pair of Michi’s in a room whose sound was completely new to me, and Rotel informed us that both devices, although very close, were not finished production samples.
With that out of the way, I started with it Hello Now by London Grammar and the first impression I got was one of scope as the instruments and vocals floated across the soundscape at the beginning of the song. Even with the electronics rack placed between the speakers, I got the impression that the image was too diffuse but well-focused and well-placed.
When the bass came in, it seemed to sound muscular and powerful. Powered by Bowers & Wilkins speakers, each note hit with power and weight, but the pair also seemed to exude precision and poise. Low frequencies never seemed to sound flabby or poorly defined.
The next was Lose Control by Teddy Swimms, another track that the Michi program seems to be determined to release. His soulful voice seems to have a lot of detail and texture – Swimming Book has an emotive, expressive voice and the Rotel pairing seemed happy to communicate it and deliver it with great purpose but without shouting it.
It’s not a huge test of time, but the track seemed to start and stop at the right places, those powerful, muscular basses coming to the fore again, but without overpowering the rest of the track.
I switched to something with a vintage vibe, by Holst The planets suite, and the system did a good job of handling the rollercoaster-esque dynamic shifts in Mars, from the dark mix at the start, to the crescendo of strings and wind instruments further along the track.
The Michi pairing didn’t seem to hold anything back and delivered a controlled, steady performance, painting each orchestral thread with a brush stroke.
The first decision
Is the new Michi Prestige Series a hit? We’ll have to wait until we can test the X430 and Q430 in person in our test rooms before we can give you our proper verdict.
However, the early signs are very promising. If they perform well under our test conditions, the lack of competition around their specific prices may make them an attractive option if you can’t stretch to the Michi Reference Series.
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