I am replacing my 12 year old system (finally!) and looking for some recommendations. I only care about 2ch audio. Mix of music is lots of pop, jazz, vocals. A bit of classical. No room for floorstanders, so going with bookshelf speakers. Here are two systems I have looked at. Which would you rather have?
#1 NAD C320BEE integrated amp NAD C521BEE cd player (or maybe the C542?) JMlabs Chorus 707s bookshelf speakers (will be on stands)
#2 Yamaha rx496 receiver Boston Acoustics vr-m50 bookshelf speakers
Anyone have experience with JMlabs 707s? They sound good to me, but I can't a/b them alongside the others. Are there others that you would recommend in this general range?
Yamaha sales people are trying to tell me that the NADs 50W per channel is too low. Should I be worried about that?
Are the NAD electronics overkill for speakers in this price range?
I don't think NAD is overkill for JMLabs, both are excellent products.
50W should be plenty of power for 2 channel listening with bookshelf speakers. Floorstanders would push the amp harder given their inherent bass extension. Depends how loud you like to play your music though.
It probably goes without saying that 1) specs don't tell the whole story (far from it, in fact) and 2) the same salesperson would be telling you exactly the opposite if s/he were trying to sell you the NAD.
What I would do is this: Take some CDs with you to both showrooms. Pre-select passages of varying kinds of music - loud, mellow, voices, instruments, bass, highs. Not necessarily your favorite tunes - but things that might highlight how the two systems do with different kinds of material.
Compare how the two systems do with exactly the same music. Of course, room acoustics will be different and neither one will be representative of your own room - but that's about as close to an a/b as your going to get.
The Focal Jmlabs can cope with a lot better electronics than the NAD. The NAD will do them justice (and the C542 would definitely help too), but if you ever come to upgrade, the speakers would certainly show any differences you made further up the chain.
Regards, Frank.
Anonymous
Posted on
listen to little ricky, Frank does not know what he is talking about.