hi, i am planning on upgrading my nad bee cd player and would like to hear your suggestions.ive looked at various models on the web but cant decide which to go for,my budget is £400 ,is this enough money to get a noticabley better sounding player? Any suggestions appreciated
My other components are a nad bee amp and monitor audio bronze 2 speakers
nout
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Why a new cd player? Not satisfied with NAD C521BEE's sound?
Which sonic element, when listening to music, you wish to better?
I am not sure what upgrade will be best: a new amp, speakers or cd player, but for £400 you can buy a great cd player. Arcam Diva CD 73 for instance or even better: a used Marantz CD 17 MKII.
But NAD C542 and Marantz CD 7300 (£300) are almost that good: you have to own some expensive speakers and amp to hear a clear difference. In fact I think you'll do better with a new amp. The difference in sound between a £250 amp and a £400 one I is bigger than that of a £250 cd player and a £400 one. Well at least I think it is.
NAD C320BEE is a very good cd player almost without any digital hardness, so you don't have to worry about it to sound crap with a better amp. Magazines like What HiFi tend to exaggerate the importance of the source, well at least they think that the biggest amount of money should be spend on it. Having a more expensive amp than source will ruin the balance in their view. I think this is true when partening a £250 cd player with a £1000 amp and very revealing speakers. (my cheap Marant cd 5000 connected to a Musical Fidelity A 3 certainly sounded horrible)
I suggest you listen to some cd players with your amp and speakers (these Monitor Bronze are excellent by the way) and audition amps like NAD C372, Denon PMA 1500 MKII and Marantz PM 7200KI signature (Ken's tweaked PM 7200).
But again why upgrading? You have a great set already
thanks for the advice,since you suggest a new amp how about buying a nad power amp and using my nad bee as a pre amp,ive read up that the nad bee has a suprisingly good pre amp section.i would do this to bi amp my speakers, which i hope would give me a clearer well defined bass.i have however read on a website that nad amps with jumper bars connecting the pre and power sections arnt suitable for bi amping but it doesnt say why, any ideas?
nout
Unregistered guest
Posted on
A power amp would be great although I don't know if it would be a better choice than a new NAD C372. Listen to both, I'd suggest.
I cannot help you with this bi amp problem, I never did any bi amping, I'm not a technical buff either.
alec f ischer
Unregistered guest
Posted on
"NEED HELP" i need help hooking up a cd player that i bought but dont know which wires go to which.
alec f ischer
Unregistered guest
Posted on
"NEED HELP" i need help hooking up a cd player that i bought but dont know which wires go to which.
Bi-amping with a 320BEE and 272 will be difficult due to the power difference. I have 2 272's bi-amped with the C162 Pre-amp and this works wonderful. Had the 372 before this and although a wonderful amp, cannot match what I have now. I think that maybe a 372 would be better for you unless you want to shell out the $$$$ for a set-up like mine. Well worth it!
Although the preamp section in the NAD C320BEE is very good, and the amp as a whole is excellent value for money, it remains a £200 amp. The CD players are also excellent value for money. In my view, the C542 is much better than the 521, but they too remain good players at their respective prices in the market. £400 would buy you an Arcam CD73T which is the est player at the price, although some people prefer the NAD C542 over it at around £329 simply because the Arcam can be a touch too smooth for its own good.
In fact, if I had to point at a weakness in your system I'd say it was with the Monitor Audios. I'm not a fan of the MA sound finding them genrally bland and boring. This is a very unpopular view, however, so if you really like them then disregard freely!
To answer your original question about whether £400 is the right budget, it's a good place to start, but don't fixate on it. If the £400 players don't satisfy you completely then look further up. Also have a listen to different presentations. The NAD's presentaton places music first with the more technical aspects of the presentation very much second - technical aspects being things like soundstage, air or space around the instruments. The NADs are about rhythm and timing. Typically, the makes in the UK that you'd be looking at to go on with the NAD approach would be Rega and Naim. Rega's Planet retails for around £550 and Naim's players start at £825. They also have strong 2nd hand representation in the UK. Rega's Planet should be bought after year 2000 for around £250. You can find Naim players for £400, but they'll be a little older. The CD3 (probably Naim's weakest player) would retail for that and will whip any new £400 player on the market! You may have to buy a dedicated DIN-Phono lead called a Chord Chrysalis which retails new for around £50. The old CD3 user may have the lead and throw it in.
It's your choice of course, but you could do a lot worse than a Naim or Rega player and you're in the right country to buy those makes 2nd hand. If you've never heard either of these brands there's bound to be a dealer in your area who would be willing to give you a quick listen and may even help source a player for you (it's how they get you to be a customer long term). Als, there's a chap who specialises purely in second hand Naim called Tom Tom Audio and he's reputed to be very good indeed, having all the gear serviced at Naim and giving a year's warranty on all his stuff. He's on the web.
