Rotel’s Michi Q5 CD player–DAC represents the culmination of the company’s renewed push into cost‑no‑object home audio under its Michi series, which debuted in the 1990s. Positioned at the top of Rotel’s lineup and the only CD player in the Michi range, the Q5 is a heavy, immaculately finished, top‑loading CD player that also functions as a transport and standalone DAC. George de Sa reviewed the Q5 on this site in November 2025.

The Q5 sells for US$7499, CA$8499, £5499, or €5999, depending on where you live, placing it squarely in the high‑end category, yet still well below the prices commanded by many ultra‑luxury digital sources. The chassis is massively overbuilt, with a rigid aluminum enclosure, thick panels, and careful internal isolation between digital, analog, and power‑supply sections. The Q5’s fit and finish are exceptional, not just for its price, but for that price many times over.

For the Q5, Rotel employs custom‑wound toroidal transformers of the company’s own design and manufacture, high-quality electronic parts in the signal path, and an ESS ES9028PRO eight‑channel DAC chip implemented into Rotel’s proprietary digital architecture. Since the Q5 can be used as a CD player, DAC, and transport, it has three digital inputs on its back panel—S/PDIF coaxial and optical as well as USB—and S/PDIF coaxial and optical outputs. Supported file formats and resolutions vary by input, with the USB input offering the most advanced playback support—PCM up to 32‑bit/384kHz and DSD up to 256. But its most obvious digital-playback feature has to do with the top-loading CD compartment, which features a massive lid that weighs about a pound and acts as a disc clamp. There are also internal lights that surround the perimeter of the disc when the lid is off. It’s a real eye-catcher.

The Q5’s analog circuitry is fully balanced, so it has balanced XLR outputs in addition to single-ended RCAs, the former presumably being what users should employ for the best performance. The front panel has a color TFT display, which shows cover art and other information, and there’s a high-quality remote control included. Since there is no internal streamer, there’s no mobile-based app.

George’s listening impressions confirmed that the Michi Q5 is not merely a beautifully built digital source, but also an exceptional‑sounding one. With the title track of the 40th-anniversary edition of the Eagles’ Hotel California, the Q5 delivered a presentation that George describes as having “soothing warmth” overall, “a rich, full tone” on bass-string plucks, and cymbal sounds that were “crisp and clean.” He further states that guitar-string reproduction “possessed a pure and sweet tone with clear resonance.”

Listening to Robert Glasper’s “Chant” from his album Canvas, which he also played back via CD, George notes: “The Michi Q5 did a beautiful job bringing life to the performance, laying out the instruments in impressively clear and distinct spaces across the soundstage—left-to-right and front-to-back. The highs were delicate, detailed, and vibrant, while the mids communicated the soft vocals as well as the inherent tonal quality of the piano notes. Bass and drums were textured and full, with abundant weight. The sound of the track was coherent and well sorted, with each instrument done full justice by the Michi Q5.”

Still assessing CD playback, George describes in the review what he heard from the 2016 Vincent Bélanger and Anne Bisson collaboration album Conversations. After listening to “Le vent souffle encore,” George writes how the track “opens with the sound of a passing subway train, which the Q5 revealed distinctly, conveying the movement of the sound from left to right in a smooth and fluid manner as Bélanger’s cello plucks and Bisson’s singing begin. The retreating sounds of the train were well separated in space from the vocals, slowly decaying into a black background.” He also describes how “bass plucks were precisely articulated while possessing fullness and accurate timbre. Bisson’s notes were also beautifully communicated by the Michi Q5, which fully preserved the glow and resonance of the vocals in a larger-than-life presentation.”

George further points out that on his favorite Conversations track, “Rupture,” “the drone of the strings was enhanced by the completeness of their decay. The Michi Q5’s depiction of the string textures, of the size of the instrument and its body and weight, was mesmerizing.”

Comparisons against established reference components in George’s system solidified the Michi Q5’s high standing. For CD playback, when comparing it against the Rega Apollo MK1 CD player by playing “The Game of Love” from Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, he notes in the review that the Apollo’s sound was “less detailed,” “less textured,” “less rich,” and “less lively.” When both the Apollo and Q5 were used solely as transports—each feeding a digital signal to an external DAC (in this case a Bryston BR-20 streaming DAC-preamplifier, George’s reference), using the same track as above, George describes how “the Apollo sounded a little crisper” but that “cymbal shimmer had a lovely silky smoothness through the Michi Q5.” He adds this observation: “Though the overall soundstage was similar in size on both transports, the dynamics had much less sense of touch via the Rega Apollo. On guitar notes, the Apollo displayed more spirit, while the Michi conveyed a more natural, fuller, golden tone with a denser image. It was evident that even running just as a transport, the Apollo could not keep up with the Michi Q5.”

The Michi Q5’s DAC section was also compared to the Bryston BR‑20’s DAC section by using the BR‑20 as a preamplifier (George details in his review how he connected XLR analog and S/PDIF coaxial outputs from the Q5 to the BR‑20 so he could easily switch back and forth to facilitate comparison). George first focused his listening on “Misguided Angel” by the Cowboy Junkies from their album The Trinity Session. George states that while the BR‑20 proved highly competent and musically satisfying, he found that the Q5 “provided a greater sense of realism. Images were more palpable, providing a surer sense of physical presence. Harmonic colors were richer and more vibrant.” On the next track, “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis),” he declares that “the patina of the cymbals via the Q5 was perhaps the most authentic” that he’d ever heard in his system.

George also brought the Apollo into the mix as a CD transport for both the Q5 and BR‑20 used as DACs. He played “Una notte a Napoli” from Pink Martini’s A Retrospective, preferring the Q5’s DAC section to the BR‑20’s once again for several reasons outlined in his review.

George’s enthusiasm for the Rotel Michi Q5 earned it not only a Reviewers’ Choice award at the time of the review but also a 2025 SoundStage! Network Product of the Year award the following month—the latter being our highest award for a product. This month, the Q5 receives a Recommended Reference Component award. But there’s still more—George recently informed us that because the Q5 so impressed him during the review period, he decided to purchase one as a reference component in his system, so you’re likely to read more about the Michi Q5 in his future reviews.

Manufacturer contact information:

Rotel America
54 Concord Street
North Reading, MA 01864
Phone: (978) 664‑3820

Website: www.rotel.com