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 | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 60W against 60W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Noise floor | B | Cambridge Audio CXA61 is the quieter design on paper - 105dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Cambridge Audio CXA61 handles DSD. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Cambridge Audio CXA61 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 4. |
| Phono stage | depends | Rotel A12 MKII has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Cambridge Audio CXA61 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 | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A Rotel A12 MKII B Cambridge Audio CXA61
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?
Cambridge Audio CXA61 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If you play records, Rotel A12 MKII 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.