No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Arcam A15 has more power - 80W against 60W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Rotel A12 MKII the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and Arcam A15 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. |
| Noise floor | B | Arcam A15 is the quieter design on paper - 106dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. Rotel A12 MKII goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Rotel A12 MKII takes more analogue sources - 4 against 3. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | B | Arcam A15 costs less - $999 against $1,100 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Arcam A15 is the cheaper watt - about $12 per watt against $18. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Rotel A12 MKII B Arcam A15
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?
Arcam A15 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
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.