Rockville BluTube 70W Bluetooth Tube Amplifier/Home Theater Stereo Receiver

I review based on price and usability. Great overall sounding tube amp. Nice warm tones and top notch balance. Acceptable distortion at high levels. I’m using this as a simple "Getting Ready" system in my bedroom area. 2 Polk Towers, 2 panel speakers & a Polk Sub. Love the integration with Bluetooth on a tube amp - nice convenience with little loss. Great function with the integration of a sub crossover to the amp > great match and adds expansion capabilities. When reading Q&A’s about adding a sub and speakers with the right sub you can have at least 4 and beyond. The tubes absolutely function (some claimed they do not) with great classic tube sound - they simply combined an amp & tube preamp vs full separation. For the money, hard to beat. As far as I can see this amplifier is branded under at least 3 different names > they all seem to have the same specs, including Monoprice who felt comfortable enough to put their name on it. • No bluetooth issues, including no connectivity loss with music playing overnight. * No feedback issues. • No power issues. • No headphone Issues • Tubes easily swappable (China or Russian) (2) 6P1 and (2) 6N1 you can find easily here on Amazon. You will hear a difference (not necessarily bad or good, just slightly different). Nice to try a few different sets (for fun). • The volt meter looks nice, but does not really do much and sometimes does’t move - makes no difference to me. • It seems to have a little issue with low HZ (below 40) but acceptable. • Highs & Mids nice & warm - you’ll def notice a difference here vs full solid state. You should follow general Tube Amp break in periods (at least 1 hour). Certainly with new speakers. When you get it don’t plug it right in and turn the volume all the way up and not expect possible issues as some made - especially with an integrated tube amp. Ignore anyone please who says this should not be done, even manufacturers. Make sure your tubes are clean & let them warm up a little. I have a Yaqin and a Reisong tube amp as well in office & library and this one does not sound harsh next to them. Can you hear the difference between a $2000 Tube Amp and this? Most likely but like I said, this one sounds great for the price and for most part you won’t be missing anything.

Obviously I went into this purchase a little skeptical. I was redoing my studio/rehearsal room and decided to setup a turntable for all my vinyl, since thats the trend these days...Anyway, I didnt want to spend a ton on more audio equipment but I needed an amp. Ran across this thing when browsing and immediately thought that it looked pretty cool. Even if it doesnt sound that great, it was only $150 and I could always send it back if it was tragic. Otherwise I would have probably just bought a Sony receiver or something so I decided to give it a shot. Also based that decision on other reviews. Well, I am very surprised!!! This thing sounds great. Plenty of power for my room. I am using a Polk powered sub along with two Polk bookshelf speakers. I dont know if its the fact that I havent sat around and listened to music without other distractions or playing via bluetooth to my car but this was really impressive. I know that its just a tube preamp but it sounds great. Nice and warm. (Crosley direct drive turntable). I am digging it. Looks great too! Again, for $150 I dont think you can go wrong. Sure you can spend thousands but will you really notice the difference. Not unless you are a super audiophile, I dont think so. I also like the fact that you can still bluetooth to the unit. I did compare the BT to actual vinyl. There is definitely a difference there too. Again, lots of factors since the phone has its own EQ. Anyway, I highly recommend this. Enjoy!!!

I was very disappointed to find what is under the hood. The tubes are mostly aesthetic and do not generate that vintage tube sound. The big black box for the transformer is 100% fake. it is just an empty black box that serves no purpose. the knobs are very scratchy and do not spin freely. But, this thing was very inexpensive, so what do you expect. It looks cool and sounds pretty good. Is it a $6000 Macintosh system? of course not... but is is the best Sub$150 bedroom level amp for my record player (no phono in so you will need a preamp) I could find. I am very happy overall once I took it for what it is.

All I have to say is dont hesitate if you're looking for a tubed hybrid amp get this.. seeing that it was only 25 watts at 8omhs and 35 at 4 I was unsure if was going to power my klipsch r51 bookshelf speakers and oh does it ever and enough power for my 250 ohm dt 770pro headphones. The sound is amazing it brought my turntable to life. I'm so glad I bought this instead of a 2 channel receiver. It gives the music life warmth and looks amazing. The bluetooth works very well and my note 9 found it right away with no problem. I haven't tried the usb so I'm not sure how that is. The only one thing I found that I didnt like and this is me being very picky is the power button is alittle wobbly I feel.like they should've used a bigger button or small sleeve for it to go in is moves from side to side ever so slight like I said in being picky. I can honestly say that for this price i wasnt expecting it to be so nice and well made. Even the unboxing experience was good. It came in a cardboard box but u open it up it's in a sturdy foam that doesn't break apart and in a cloth bag I was amazed. I never really right reviews unless it really impresses me. This is just my opinion but I hope this review helps.

So, this was my first foray in to tube amps. I intentionally went the inexpensive route, primarily in case I didn't like the sound quality or it didn't drive my speakers. I had always heard that tubes offer a "warmth" to the music not found in silicon amps. Now, the sound from this tube amp is definitely different from my Pioneer VSX-LS303 AVR, but I don't know if I'm actually hearing the tubes or not. It's my understanding the tubes are part of the preamp but the output is silicon. That said, I really like this as a headphone amp and it makes my HiFiMan 400i headphones sound spectacular. But I also like it as an amplifier. I was concerned it would not be able to adequately drive my Klipsch r-820f speakers, but trust me when I tell you there's power to spare. It helps that their sensitivity is 97dB, but this amp drives real life into them. I love the 2-band EQ (bass and treble). Tone control seems to be a thing of the past on today's modern equipment, but it's just fantastic on this tube amp. Both treble and bass controls are very sensitive, so whether you need add or remove a little or a lot, you'll be able to totally dial in the tone that suits you best. The bluetooth is super slick and works flawlessly. And maybe the good people at Rockville heard the myriad complaints about the blinking light and fixed it. When I use it the light is solid, and is off even when the toggle switch is in the middle but not connected to bluetooth. I like that it has two inputs on the back even though I only use one for a phono preamp. Many of you with vinyl and CDs will enjoy being able to connect both and accessing either by way of the toggle switch on tuner front. I may or may not buy another tube amp in my life, but even if I don't I'm super pleased with this entry level Rockville BluTube. And don't think it won't power your speakers. It definitely will with plenty of headspace to spare.

The price on this thing is really good for what it is, but I had a major problem with the bluetooth connectivity every hour or so 'freezing' in a state that sounded like an amber alert coming over my speakers until I could cycle the power on it. This was obviously unacceptable and I returned it for this reason. Probably just a fluke, but I ordered a different one with updated bluetooth tech instead of this one. This one is only bluetooth 2.1. When I first got it, I thought it sounded pretty bad and weak and I almost returned it right away for that reason. However, after running for about 20-30 hours it 'broke in' or whatever and the sound became incredibly nice. There seems to be some controversy about whether tubes sound better after being broken in, especially on a hybrid amp like this one. I dont wish to debate it, because I experienced it first hand and can attest to it being true. Without question, it made a world of difference and the warmth really came through as well as a marked power output (max volume level increase) after this burn in period. So, if you are unhappy with the sound right out of the box, do yourself a favor and run it for 20-30 hours before deciding to return it. Other than the bluetooth problem I was quite happy with it using a pair of Polk T15s. I do wish it had a sub out and a line out connection but I certainly cant ding the review for that because i knew it didn't when I bought it. Also, the headphone amp on it works wonderful as well making the price for it that much more appreciated. The ambiance of it is beautiful, and it has enough power to fill a small room, but I found low volume ambient music the real sweet spot for this item. I own a fairly powerful and quality (harmon kardon) stereo system as well (in the same room) and having this unit makes listening at lower volumes much more enjoyable, adding warmth and clarity at low volume that I simply cant seem to achieve with my high power amp/tower speaker combo. The lighting from it sets a nice mood for this style of music as well, and this is the reason I bought it and was quite happy with it in this regard. IMO to really get any power out of it you would need to add a powered sub, and they would do a great service to people if they added a sub out on it in future iterations.

EDIT: I've had this for about two and a half years and for whatever reason the right channel has failed mysteriously. I tried switching speakers, wires, even the preamp tubes over and nothing. Right channel is just dead. I have no idea why this would be the case, this amp has lived a very comfortable life, it's never been run hard, it just quietly sits on a table next to my turntable. I was thinking about buying another one of these for my bedroom, but I guess I'll just look at Fosi or some other brand now. I will probably take this thing apart at one point to see if I can figure out what went wrong, but there's not much point since I doubt anything inside is repairable. I could just use y-splitters to feed both channels into the left input and put both sets of speakers on the working left channel. No more stereo, but I'm not sure what else you can do with half an amp. The amp is cute and is a nice style piece in the right place, but overall it's got some warts. I will not try to use language like "sparkling highs" and "wide soundstage" because I don't know what they mean or if they even matter since the speakers you use will impact how the sound hits you. If you like sound that is neutral, progressive, chesty, strident, that also has a chocolatey midrange, I wish you the best, but you can stop reading now. What I can say is that the amp creates entirely inoffensive sound. You won't be unhappy unless you're a fancy person, but if you're that fancy, you're not buying a $150 Monoprice rebrand amp. If you're a normal person with normal ears, you'd say "hey, that's not bad" and you would probably be happy. If you crank up the treble and bass knobs to max, it will sound like you turned them all the way up. There are no real surprises here. My only beef with this amp is that I don't understand exactly who/what it is for. There is no phono preamp, so either you'd have to buy an external or you get a turntable with a built-in preamp. Given that phono preamps are kind of expensive and are supposed to produce superior sound, why would you buy a cheap amp and then plug in an expensive preamp? I have a turntable plugged in using it's own preamp and it's ok, but annoyingly the inputs are labeled as "CD" and "DVD". Not sure who is plugging a DVD player into this thing given how it's a stereo amp only. Vinyl sounds perfectly nice to my untrained ears even when using the TT built-in preamp. No complaints. Additionally, there is no subwoofer out on this amp. No biggy if you don't have a sub, but seems trivial to include. It has reasonably good power, but a powered sub can take up a lot of slack for a low/mid-range amp. The worst thing about this amp is the Bluetooth support. Given how it's called "BluTube" it seems that the Bluetooth feature is kind of important. However, it only supports the SBC codec which is the oldest and lowest-fidelity. I have a $90 Fosi Audio BT30D that is smaller, has a subwoofer out and at least supports AAC. No, it's not a tube amp, but despite the fact that it's not very pretty does everything this Bluamp does and more for less money. This is a case of style over substance; if you value the look over the sound and features, this will probably be a good choice for you. I purchased it with a different use in mind and then things changed. I would not purchase this for a turntable if that's what you intend. I would not purchase this to play Bluetooth-connected music unless you use Spotify (they do not support lossless audio so all their streams are lo-fi to match this amp's SBC). If the return period were still open, I would have returned this amp. It does make perfectly cromulent sound, but with too many small compromises.

This hybrid tube amp by Rockville is a fantastic steal for the price. Actually it sounds as good if not better than other brands costing far more. The soft gentle sound of this amp is difficult to describe. There is plenty of power to push any speaker to its limits. The version that has the wood side panels is well worth the extra 20 bucks. This piece of equipment reminds me so much of the beautiful equipment i owned and still own fro the 1960s and 1970s. The wood along side the metal silver faced amp brig out the professional look. All the controls this amp is packing will surly satisfy your needs. Also if you don’t care about the wood panels the amp is finished professionally with the black vinyl. Every comes packaged neatly. I am a Dayton sub fan also but in direct comparison I have to give the Rockvill the advantage in sound and price. You can't go wrong with either brand. Enjoy your music again.

Muy buena calidad de audio

No sub woofer output. Awesome sound and great appearance.

Los bulbos solamente son un "adorno" poco hacen como circuito electrónico. La salida se hace con transistores de potencia y NO con bulbos.

Well designed product