An ’80s amplifier that still holds up today
The Eighties were a glorious time for budget integrated amplifiers. Sales (and the resultant profits) were huge, leading manufacturers to fight tooth and nail for a larger piece of the pie. The great news for buyers was an escalation in sonic ability that hasn’t been repeated since. The RA820BX we have here, kindly loaned to us by Rotel UK, is an excellent example of the kind of product made at the time.
However, our story doesn’t start with Rotel at all. It begins with a small, then London-based company called New Acoustic Dimension, better known as NAD. In the late ’70s, NAD launched the now legendary 3020 integrated amplifier. This was an unassuming thing with basic features and a fairly flimsy build. The amplifier was unexceptional in most regards apart from the fact that it was affordable, and sounded great. How affordable? Looking back through What Hi-Fi?’s archives, we find that it sold for a modest £71 in 1979.
The 3020 was designed to drive real speaker loads rather than just produce great figures in lab tests, and managed to deliver a blend of warmth, boldness and musicality that impresses even today. It took the market by storm, but before long every rival manufacturer had its own contender. Most fell short of the performance standards set by the NAD – but by adding a more substantial build quality and a tauter, analytical sound, the RA820 succeeded brilliantly.
Constantly moving
But this was a time when no manufacturer could stand still and bask, so within a short few years that original RA820 spawned the more purist RA820B and then the RA820BX we have here. At each step, the signal path was made a little cleaner, its features reconsidered (tone controls and speaker switching went early on) and component quality improved. The move to improved internal components was particularly significant in the jump from the RA820B to the BX model. There were numerous changes, from better-quality capacitors and uprated output transistors to improved internal cabling. The removal of the rather grotty spring speaker terminals for proper 4mm binding posts was also welcome.
Rotel continued to develop the RA820 along purist lines for a few more years, until market demand switched to wanting improved flexibility and features. The company obliged while trying to maintain high performance levels, with regular amplifier Award wins through the 1990s and 2000s.
How does the Rotel RA820BX perform by today’s standards? Surprisingly well, we think. This amplifier cost £130 when it was introduced in 1984, which puts it anywhere between
