These are not the same size of amplifier: Arcam A25 has roughly 2x the power of Rotel A11 MKII. That is about 3dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Arcam A25 has more power - 100W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Rotel A11 MKII the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and Arcam A25 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. |
| Speaker load rating | B | Arcam A25 is rated down to 4 ohms against 8, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Noise floor | B | Arcam A25 is the quieter design on paper - 106dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Rotel A11 MKII takes more analogue sources - 4 against 3. |
| Room to grow | B | Only Arcam A25 offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Rotel A11 MKII is Class A/B and Arcam A25 is Class G. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class G/H switches its supply rails to cut the heat a Class A/B design wastes. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | A | Rotel A11 MKII costs less - $799 against $1,499 at list. |
A Rotel A11 MKII B Arcam A25
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?
The usual trade-off: Arcam A25 measures better, Rotel A11 MKII costs about 47% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Arcam A25 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 50 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 50 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Arcam A25 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason. Think about the whole system: the roughly $700 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.