Rogue Audio Cronus "Dark" Integrated Amplifier Review | AJ Reports... 

I have this amp and this review is spot on. I absolutely love it. Everything sounds smooth and engaging. I've never been a huge fan of Willie Nelson, but listening to You Are Always On My Mind just blew me away, in addition to anything by Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Neil Young at Carnegie or Massey Hall, the Stones, the Dead, Jascha Heifetz, you name it. I can and do listen to this amp and my Joseph Audio speakers for hours on end. I added a Perlisten D15s sub, and the whole combination blows me away. Glad to see such a favorable review of this amp. Rogue has earned more attention.

Terrible review You need to tell us the other equipment used in the review or it it a waste of time

I had my unit upgraded to the Dark version - love it. I've got a Gustard R26 (ladder) DAC, BlueSound Noded w/LPS, Magnepan LRS+ speakers - amazing with jazz. What equipment was used in your review???

Ihave one and it sounds excellent

I own a CM1. Excellent amp and company. Thanks for the review

Not "faster". Solid state devices have always been the lower bandwidth devices. RF stages in transmitters were tube based well past solid state taking over audio. The proof tubes are still the high frequency ruler is in every microwave oven. They all still use a tube to get that high frequency high power needed.

Had the cmiii for a while now. It's been played for at least 2000 hours, flawlessly, had to give a tiny tweak to 1 tubes buas. It makes great music. Styx paradise theater never sounded so good. Wiim pro+>rogue cmiii>goldenear triton one.R.

im either going to upgrade my cronus magnum 1 into a cronus dark, for about $2500. Or i sell it and get the atlas dark and the rp1 preamp. which would be closer to $6000 minus whatever i can get for the CM1. Any thoughts from anyone? i believe the rp1 is dual mono so that would probably allow better air around instruments...?

You have to open it up to change speaker impedance or the phono stage setting? That's convenient if you change speakers or swap between cartridges. It's nice that it's made in the U.S., but I would suggest first time tube amp buyers go less expensive. There are some decent ones that are made in China for way less but you need to do your research. The Willsenton R8 revised version is very nice for less than $1,500, although they only claim 45 wpc in ultra-linear mode, not 100 wpc. Plus it doesn't have a built in phono pre-amp, but I think most people would want to have a stand alone anyway. Of course there are many smaller and cheaper ones out there to experiment with. I think everyone should at least listen to tubes to see if it's something they would enjoy. But a nice review all the same.

What DAC and Phono Pre-Amp do you recommend for the Rogue Audio Cronus "Dark" Integrated Amplifier? I want to link it to my two sound sources - my iMac and my turntable. Thanks.

Always been a Rouge fan. Glad to see them getting recognized, again, by a leading HiFi publication.

Aaron - nice review.

Having owned/own 8 Rogue products I can attest they are awesome. I also know that their sound can be impacted but the load presented and you really should list the speakers that you used. It gives us all an additional reference point

I’ll need to find out from VTL, just how much they paid in the development of Microprocessor Controlled Auto-Bias Monitoring. And while I really like Rogue, I don’t relish handling a chore that dicey.

Reading off a prepared write-up is tolerable, but playing music in the background is irritating.

Nice take here. Thank you.

I have owned one for years and it is fantastic. I wrote Rogue w several after purchase questions - they followed up immediately with great advice. Mark the owner even took the time to contact me. It’s great to deal with a company like this great tech nice people high-quality products handmade in America 😊

I have the cmiii.... wondering how much of an upgrade it is from cmii to the dark version

Love my CMIII Dark.

Wow, lame review. A first from AS

At that price point there is plenty of competition...