Siblings in Rotel's RA range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 200W against 200W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (350W and 350W). |
| Noise floor | evenly matched | Much the same signal-to-noise ratio (103dB vs 103dB). |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | The same streaming platforms and services on both. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (4). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | A | Rotel RA-1592 MKII costs less - $3,200 against $4,500 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Rotel RA-1592 MKII is the cheaper watt - about $16 per watt against $23. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Rotel RA-1592 MKII B Rotel Diamond RA-6000
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?
Rotel RA-1592 MKII has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,300 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.