One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Denon PMA-1700NE has more power - 70W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.5dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate HiFi Rose RS201E the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and Denon PMA-1700NE for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Denon PMA-1700NE holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 140W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Denon PMA-1700NE is the quieter design on paper - 107dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only HiFi Rose RS201E handles MQA. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only HiFi Rose RS201E has Roon. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Denon PMA-1700NE takes more analogue sources - 3 against 1. |
| Phono stage | depends | Denon PMA-1700NE has a built-in phono stage (MM,MC) and HiFi Rose RS201E does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | Only HiFi Rose RS201E offers preamp outputs; only Denon PMA-1700NE offers A/B speaker terminals - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | HiFi Rose RS201E is Class D and Denon PMA-1700NE is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | HiFi Rose RS201E takes up about 66% less shelf area (672cm² against 1949cm²), and it is 208mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Denon PMA-1700NE is the cheaper watt - about $30 per watt against $44. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A HiFi Rose RS201E B Denon PMA-1700NE
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Denon PMA-1700NE has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Denon PMA-1700NE is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, Denon PMA-1700NE saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.