You can use headphones with your surround processor or receiver by purchasing an optional headphone amplifier. They are readily available and come in a range of prices from several suppliers. To use these devices it will require that you connect the headphone amplifier using the Left and Right analog outputs to either the "Zone Out" or "Tape Out" connection on the receiver. The Zone Output is recommended to allow you to use the internal Volume Control for that zone. If your Headphones or Headphone Preamp has a volume control the "Tape Out" jacks would work fine.

Please note that for sources to be available for the headphones the sources must be connected with analog audio connections. As an example: If you have a Cable or Satellite Box connected to the "Video 1" input using a Digital Coaxial or Optical cable you would ALSO have to connect the Left and Right Analog Outputs from the Cable or Satellite Box to the "Video 1" Left and Right analog inputs for the source to be available to the headphones.

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.

If you have an iPod/iPhone or similar device and want to connect it to a Rotel model that does not have a front USB or dedicated media player input, you can do the following.

The simplest solution is to use a headphone to RCA adapter cable. This cable should have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on one end, and a pair of stereo RCA connections on the other. Simply connect the RCA end of the cable to an empty input on your Rotel device (do not use the PHONO input, however), then connect the other end of the cable to the headphone output of the iPod. Just select the input on the Rotel that you just connected to and play! Note that you will probably need to turn up the volume on the iPod to near maximum to get enough output on the system, as this method does use the internal volume controls on the iPod/iPhone as well as the Rotel system volume.

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.

Register your Rotel internet tuner at www.rotelradio.com. Once you have registered with the code number from your tuner or receiver (see instructions in the owners' manuals), you may begin putting together favorite stations from almost anywhere in the world.

The rotelradio website lets you quickly search and organize stations by locations, genre, or even artists. You can also search and organize stations right on the Rotel unit itself.