Rotel RHC-10

Part of the Rotel MICHI series.

Michi means "direction" and the RHC-10 was named Takumi : craftsmanship, as written on this image.

Rotel built a lot for many and kept most of its own lineups close to the "budget high-end" throughout its life with only rare attempts at clearly tagged super-toppers like the RB-5000 and RC-5000.

Thirteen years after the 5000s, the Michi series was however launched when japanese high-end was beginning to be superceded by the unexpected return of its american and european... predecessors.

At first with only three components, the Michi series was later complemented in some markets by one variant, two sources and a less expensive sibling :

RHB-10 dual-mono power amplifier
RHC-10 passive controller
RHQ-10 phono equalizer
RHA-10 active preamplifier
RHT-10 FM tuner
RHCD-10 CD player (big)
RHB-05 power amplifier.


The RHC-10 is an empty box.
Oh, well - not really. But passive controller have no phono eq, gain stages or AC power-supply so all that is left is one PCB, one input level attenuator and play/rec source switchers.

The PCB is made of high-grade fiberglass with double-sided and extra-thick copper tracks on the underside, copper shielding on the other and carefully designed ground paths to eliminate interference between inputs and outputs.

High quality rotary switches "normally found in high precision industrial instruments" deal with input switching and record source selector.

The 4-gang INput level control (passive device oblige) uses a "highly conductive plastic material with minimum resistance variation".
I don't know who made these for Rotel... Perhaps super-top ALPS or, more likely, around the upper-class neighborood of Penny&Giles. Or ?

Five inputs are available, alongwith one tape output and one main output - all gold-plated WBTs with Teflon insulation. The chassis is made of non-magnetic aluminium and so are the knobs and level attenuator.


Like the RC-5000 and RB-5000, the Michi series was mostly made for the export market and is just as exceedingly rare.