Rotel Michi X3 Integrated Amplifier Review (2024)

The Rotel Michi X3 is an integrated amplifier with a selection of analogue and digital inputs. This is very much the sort of thing we see at a variety of prices on AVForums in 2021 and Rotel themselves has been making amps with analogue and digital inputs for a number of years and very capable they are too. The story here is not the specification though, it’s the price it is happening at and the name on the front.

The Michi X3 is £4,300 which takes it above where Rotel has traditionally plied its trade. Furthermore, it is the smallest (a relative term, as we shall cover) member of the Michi range. This isn’t dipping a toe into more expensive waters, it’s a full on assault on the territory where some very capable designs operate. Rotel very clearly means business with this one.

That name isn’t an accident either. Rotel has used Michi before. The word means ‘Direction’ and, at the beginning of the nineties, they made a small range of Michi components that were technically innovative, beautifully made and took the company into new price points. In that original iteration, the market changed a little at the time that the products were released (pivoting to an emphasis on the US and European high end) which took some of the punch out of their move but the products themselves were outstanding. Can the X3 deliver on the same ideals while being exactly what the market of the moment needs? Read on to find out.

Summarising the approach that Rotel has taken with the X3 (and indeed the rest of the Michi range) might be best done as ‘conventional but hefty.’ This is not where you are going to find a brand new amplifier topology, bespoke decoding or some other achingly of the moment feature. Across the whole range, Rotel seems to have leveraged technology that they already use and worked to make it better rather than releasing something all new in a flurry of white papers.

Firstly, the X3 is a class A/B amplifier. In overall design and layout, it is relatively conventional, with a single large toroid supplying a pair of mono amplifier stages. The internal layout of the X3 is visibly similar to similarly priced devices like the Musical Fidelity M8 Xi, where the power supply occupies the bottom of the chassis and the power amps are mounted vertically on either side of the chassis. The amplifiers themselves are hefty ones. Rotel claims a power output of 200 watts into 8 ohms, rising to 350 into 4. Sandwiched between Musical Fidelity models that dispose of 500 and 550 watts respectively, this might seem fairly middle of the road but it should be sufficient for all but the most industrial of applications.

In front of the power amp section is a preamp that makes use of a 100 step rotary encoder for volume and another for input selection. At first glance the Michi looks to be a fairly minimalist design in the manner of European rivals, with no form of bass or treble adjustment but that isn’t the case. The X3 has bass, treble and balance adjustment but they are all in a menu driven system. This keeps the front panel tidy but it does mean that if you are an inveterate tweaker; the sort of person that has ‘optimal’ settings for different albums, this might not be the amp for you.

If you have many different sources though, the X3 should be at the top of any shortlist. It comes fitted with a balanced input on an XLR connection, three RCA line inputs and a moving magnet phono stage. There are then no less than eight digital inputs; three optical, three coax, an Apt-X capable Bluetooth connection and USB inputs for connection to a PC or Mac and directly attaching thumb drives. Decoding is undertaken via AKM DAC of unspecified nature and this gives the X3’s USB input 24/384kHz and ‘DSD via DoP support’ (oddly with no figure given although the X3 has been able to work with DSD128 while under test). All of this is output to two pairs of speaker terminals, a preout and a 6.35mm headphone socket.

What the X3 won’t do is run as a network audio device. The Ethernet connection on the back has a similar role to some other Rotel integrated amps, AV receivers and processors and that is to provide a control point for the X3 rather than an extra source. As ever, something like the SOtM SMS-200 will provide a network control point for the USB input if you wish so this isn’t really much of a detractor to the overall performance. In a perfect world, the phono stage would offer moving coil support (the one in the larger X5 amp does so Rotel has presumably nixed it to provide another point of differentiation between the two) but it isn’t like you don’t have inputs to connect a standalone unit to if you wished. The absence of HDMI ARC is a little annoying too but Rotel still makes AV products so possibly doesn’t want to cannibalise that sector.

Like the original Michi units, the X3 and the rest of the new Michi range have a completely different design aesthetic to the range components. Separating my interests as a reviewer (where a highly reflective black product is as welcome as a fart in a space suit for photography purposes), I think Rotel has done a brilliant job with the X3. The simple front panel is clean and uncluttered, dominated by the two rotary controls and large white on black display that gives input, playback details of digital sources and volume level; the latter of which is large enough for most people to be able to read comfortably at any sensible distance.

It abounds with lovely design details too. The heatsink is external but rather than having the fins exposed, there’s an outer surround to them which means that picking the X3 up is rather less uncomfortable than most rivals. The remote handset is also brilliant to use as it sits in the hand beautifully but, thank to being made of metal, it feels substantial. The scroll search for inputs is just about fast enough to obviate the need for direct input selection too. It is also superbly made. Given that Rotel bolts a £350 amp together with impressive thoroughness, you can surmise that the X3 gives away nothing to anything I’ve tested, including the devices pushing on ten grand.

You can reasonably argue that the house similarity between the Michi range and the more affordable models is limited but I think that is deliberate. This is a halo range with its own identity and the looks reflect that. The only caveat to this is that the X3 is- to use the parlance of our times- an absolute unit. The net weight of ‘only’ 28.9kg is manageable to an extent but that heatsink surround means that the X3 is no less than 48.5cm wide (2mm wider than the Musical Fidelity M8xi, hitherto, the widest amp I’ve tested here) and 45.2cm deep. This is a big amplifier and you will need to check the space you have available very carefully to ensure you have room for it.

The Rotel was connected up to an IsoTek Evo3 Sigmas mains conditioner and taking a feed from a Roon Nucleus via USB and an AVID Ingenium Twin, Rega RB330 and Golding 2500 moving iron cartridge running to the phono input. Bluetooth was tested via Oppo Find X2 Neo. Some additional testing has taken place via the other side of the AVID, running an SME M2-9 arm and Goldring Ethos cartridge into a Cyrus Phono Signature phono stage connected via RCA and a dCS Bartok also via RCA. Speakers used have been the Focal Kanta No1 and the Kudos Titan 505, with the Focal Clear MG being used to test the headphone output. Material used has been FLAC, AIFF, DSD, Tidal and Qobuz along with some vinyl.

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The X3 had the unusual privilege (or disadvantage, your mileage may vary) of arriving with little or no preconceived notion on my part of how it might sound. While I have tested a few Rotel amps over the years, the Michi represents a move into new territory. With this in mind, I got it in and running and simply listened to it for a bit to get a handle on where this amp sits in the wider price point.

What has become clear in the time that the Michi X3 has been running is that, temperamentally it feels closer to devices like the Rega Aethos and Naim Supernait 3 than it does something like the Cambridge Audio Edge A, even if the latter amp is a much closer match in terms of specification and design. Running with the Focal Kanta and taking a USB in from the Roon Nucleus, the manner in which the Michi tears into Radiohead’s Burn the Witchis urgent and engaging. The Cambridge is a spacious, accurate and effortless performer. By contrast, the Rotel feels slightly more constrained and less three dimensional but there’s an underlying feeling of grunt and rhythmic engagement that is something that has you nodding along and nudging the volume up without noticing so that, two hours or so in, you are listening to something like Head Down by Rival Sons very loudly indeed.

Critically, this willingness and drive that the Michi X3 shows is something that is sufficiently controlled so as to ensure that it is more than a well finished PA system. Listening to Stanley Johnson’s absurd take on Eleanor Rigby, the Rotel ensures that his astonishing guitar work is the star of the show. It captures the fine detail and nuance of the performance beautifully and never once feels forced or artificial. The moment there’s a time signature to make sense of though, it simply grips and goes. When you listen to something with more pronounced low end like The Point by The Emperor Machine, the X3 moves fast but hits hard which is always the balance I’m looking for. With both the Focal and Kudos, the Rotel has been a genuinely entertaining partner.

More listening reveals the digital section of the X3 to be very well sorted. This is a slightly unusual performer for something with an AKM DAC as that slightly sweet quality that they can often display is absent. Instead, you are treated to unfailingly accurate tonality and excellent detail retrieval that is extremely hard to provoke into harshness or aggression. Even pushing the Rotel hard into the Focal- a speaker I value for its ability to find the rough edge in any partnering chain doesn’t reveal any meaningful nastiness.

In many regards though, it’s that magnificent amplification section that warrants the most praise. Since it was tested here, the price of the Edge A has risen to £5,500 and this makes the Rotel an interesting value proposition. This is one of the most affordable instances of the ideal of the ‘straight wire with gain’ where the gain should be sufficient for pretty much any domestic task I can envisage on the market because, when the specification is compared to the Rega Aethos and Naim Supernait 3, it’s hard to argue that the Rotel is offering quite a bit more functionality for its asking price.

Much of that functionality is very good too. Testing the headphone socket with the superlative Focal Clear MG suggests that it is more than up to the task of even some fairly critical listening (although the fairly benign sensitivity of the Focal is not a huge challenge for headphone amps) with little appreciable noise and some of the same appealing urgency as the main amplifier stage. I like the Bluetooth input too. It may still seem incongruous to have such a thing on an amp like this but it sounds consistently good and it is hugely convenient with it.

Pretty much the only area that doesn’t leave me so enthused is the phono stage. Connected to the AVID, I have found it offers fairly limited gain and doesn’t seem to have the same unburstable enthusiasm as the rest of the amp. If you are in the slightly odd subset of people who want a £4,300 amp but use vinyl as an occasional source, it’s probably sufficient but it never feels as well sorted as the rest of the feature set. Of course, thanks to the Rotel’s vast selection of spare inputs, this doesn’t really matter as much as it might. If you want to take vinyl more seriously, you are unlikely to have run out of the means to connect it and some tests with the Cyrus and dCS Bartok suggest that the performance available via the analogue connections is entirely in keeping with that well sorted digital section.

Rotel Michi X3 Integrated Amplifier Review