If you have an iPod/iPhone or similar device and want to connect it to a Rotel model that has a front panel Media Player input, you can do the following.

A 3.5mm (1/8”) stereo input socket for a “Media Player” is provided on the front of the Rotel model. To select it, turn the front panel LISTENING control to AUX or press the AUX 1 button on the remote control.  Any portable stereo cassette, compact disc player or hard disc playback device can be connected via this input. If the Media Player input is connected to the headphone outputs of the player note that you may need to adjust the volume control on the player for sound to be heard. If the sound is loud and distorted turn down the volume on the player. If the sound is not loud enough, even when the Rotel volume control is turned up fairly high, then carefully turn up the volume control on the player.

Note: When the 3.5mm (mini jack) is inserted into the Media Player socket the rear input called AUX is disconnected. Removing the 3.5mm plug from the Media player socket will allow the rear AUX input to function.

This solution is the simplest, but also tends to be the lowest quality as well as this method is utilizing the digital to analog converters and analog circuitry in the iPod or iPhone, which are not typically high quality.

A better solution to consider is an external iPod dock or USB DAC, such as the RDD-1580. The DAC would connect to an analog input on your Rotel model similar to the method above, but with these devices you would then either dock your iPod or connect to the DAC using the normal USB connection cable. The advantage of this method is when the audio from the iPod is obtained via the USB cable it is the digital audio, which allows the critical digital to analog conversion steps to be handled by the DAC and would offer a significant sonic improvement compared to a direct connection via cable. Another advantage is you can usually use a remote control for the DAC to handle basic transport controls like Play/Pause/Track selection, rather than having to manually make these changes on the iPod itself.