I urgently need advise on a purchase I am about to initiate. I've already ordered the Yamaha RX-V 2500 receiver, but am still waiting for my order. In the meantime I've seen the NAD T-763 for the same price (around 1000 Euro). I'm already a prowed owner of an older NAD amplifier and love the sound. I would stick to it but would like to go surround (hence I purchase the Yammie). Could some one please confirm if me changing over to the T-763 vs. the Yammi RXV 2500 is a good choice (I like both, music and movie sound, but music is more important to me). Front and centerspeakers used are XLT 100 from JBL. sub is JBL northridge 100. Surround speakers will be smaller Accoustic Research speakers.
I've read many nice things about the 2500 (sound is no as bright as previouse Jammie models), but news on the actual power output in surround was disapointing. Please..... Help ... I'm running out of time and need to make a decission soon (currently I think I will go for NAD - based on experience).
did you have any issues with static or humms? There have been a lot of issues reported with the predecesor T762. Some of this issues are still not fixed I heard.
p.s.: how about the Yamaha 2500 ...have you heard things about it? thx
Bender - the Yamaha is quite nice for movies but I find it weak for music listening (flat and uninspired). If music is a priority, then consider NAD, Rotel, Arcam and Cambridge Audio. Harman Kardon is also a nice choice, especially their new avr635 but I think its far too expensive in Europe to be a viable option for you.
I personally would choose either Arcam or the Cambridge Audio unit but that is just me. I find Rotel to be too detailed at times and NAD can be problematic at times. If you get a good working unit, you should be golden.
Gvenk
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Posted on
"I find Rotel to be too detailed..."
Too detailed? That is the first time I have heard that as a negative. Just curious as to what you mean.
I know what you mean Markus. Precision is not always an advantage! Music is alive and organic. Detail and precision might be ok for a movie experience but not for music... I heard elswhere that the Yamaha models are too precise, so I'm leaning toward purchasing the NAD t-763 now. Pitty ...cause I really like the functionality of the Yammie 2500
Gvenk
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I must confess I have no idea what you guys are talking about and I say this as a part-time practicing musician. The music I play is alive and organic and if the sound system reproduces that correctly and precisely and in complete detail than the audience hears what I play. I wouldn't want the sound system introducing its own coloration under any circumstances even if some people like it. Besides, the speakers have a much more influence on the sound than the receivers. Do you prefer speakers that are less detailed and precise as well?
Do you guys expect the sound system to be more musical or more alive or more organic than what the musicians intended or have I stumbled on to some golden ear mumbo jumbo?
If a system sounds sterile, for example, then that is an artifact of its inability to reproduce the recording properly or the music itself is sterile.
I am still curious if I am missing something entirely.
Gvenk - I just find the sound of the Rotel to be harsh at times in my environment compared to the NAD and Cambridge Audio products I own / have owned. Some people like all that detail, others do not. Same could be said for Klipsch speakers. Some find these to be perfect and detailed while I find they cause listener fatigue rather quickly.
Too each their own. No golden ear mumbo jumbo, just personal preference.
Gvenk
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Posted on
Thanks for the explanation. I can certainly understand a personal preference where one may want a system sound to be colored in the way one wants to hear it ("warm", "bright", "compressed", "airy", etc.) but I am not sure the preference has anything to do with a system not being precise or detailed (as opposed to not having the coloration one prefers) which is what confused me.
It is also possible that what gives you fatigue or sounds harsh (assuming you wouldn't have felt the same way listening to the original music live!) is an artificat of either some distortion, the lack of some overtones present in the original music, etc., which are hardly a characteristic of being a precise/detailed system.
A precise and detailed system is closer to the music as recorded than one that isn't and shouldn't be considered a negative in my opinion. Especially with an implication that it isn't reproducing music "correctly" ("Music is alive and organic" as the other person said). It is the musician that makes the music alive and organic not the system other than to reproduce it faithfully. Otherwise, we are on the slippery slope to what Bose stands for ... to give some people the music in a way they want to hear it (especially the mass tastes) rather than to reproduce it as performed by the artiste.
I would certainly understand if one said the Rotel wasn't warm enough or bright enough or airy enough for one's tastes but to say the latter is the way music is to be heard seems a bit presumptious of one's tastes... :-)
fact is that hardware is THE impact on what is preceived to be 'audible', which is in my opinion the primary reason for the existance of all these audiphile forums.
I need to decide between an NAD system and one of the nicer Yamahas (rxv 2500). My experience with NAD is that it makes music feel alive.... and it does color the music. Does it reproduce the music correctly? That question is impossible to answer! If you're in a live concert music is streamed through an amplifier of some sort (unless it's purely accoustic). Therefore, even in live situations the hardware is trying to emulate what the musicians are playing. Every amplification source has its' own flavour. I just want to find one that tasts pleasant to me. ...and I do want to avoid purchasing an amp that sounds to precise ...as that to me is steril.
Bender, Only you can decide that with your own ears. You might consider ordering the NAD from someone with a good return policy and find out for yourself.
I personally dont like NAD, but that doesnt mean you'll feel the same way.
If I may ask, why do you not like NAD? Just wondering. In your response, please try to give specific reasons for your dislike, rather than statements like "it looks like a toaster".
Paul probably hasn't heard an NAD. If he did he would have the same revelatory experience that he had with the sub and would also have if he heard how much better his home theater could sound with good speakers. Ignorance is only bliss until innocence is lost.
Johnny, When NAD dove-in headfirst into the HT arena, they knowingly flooded the market with defective product. I simply cant support any company who does business in such a manner. Who's to say that their 'next newest best thing' wont have buggs too???
I would have a lot more respect for them had they 'held-off' the release of product until they worked out more of the major kinks in their product. Quality control is an important factor that I consider when buying a product, and in my opinion....NAD lacks in that category.
Art, Thats very true..... I havnt listened to the NAD and probably never will for the same reason that I wouldnt consider buying certain brands of TVs regardless of how great their pictures are.
The fact is that ALL equipment introduces a colouration of its own. This is why HiFi dealers say that in the end your choice of system comes down to personal preference - i.e. which colourations would you rather live with! It's a real pain in the neck but that's the way it is. Even really high end stuff has colouration. Some manufacturers are so bent on removing the colourations that the music becomes lifeless, losing that organic feel. Other manufacturers are so bent on maintaining that organic quality that the system sometimes sounds energised or 'too organic' for some music (particularly classical). The rest of the manufacturers are in between. It's a compromise that is reached depending on the materials, design and components used in implementation of the products.
Bender,
I don't understand where Paul is coming from with this talk of defective product. The NADs have been as reliable as the other similarly priced brands. There have been complaints about them hissing more than other receivers which is true in certain cases (the headphone socket particularly) for some models, but in the music reproduction department they leave most others dead in my view.
I understand Paul. I must say though that having worked in manufacturing for several years that what NAD did is not at all unusual. Manufacturers ar increasingly pressured into relasing product before thay are ready for prime time. Believe me every company does it, bar none. Also you have to look at a manufacturers history before making an across the borad judgement. I own several pieces of NAD gear and have at this point not had any trouble. They have a very good reputation for reliability. The first Rotel AVR the RSX965 was plagued by problems but they learned and by the second version of it it had improved markedly. Manufacturing is a process and it sucks being a consumer who gets caught up in it but it happens.
I too understand Paul's reasoning, but he seems to have some bad information. Like I have said many times, there were a few who had legitimate problems with their NAD units...but that was in no way indicitive of the brand as a whole. Just because a couple of people post problems on these forums does not mean that every NAD is bad. This forum is known to have many who own and love NAD. It is natural that anyone who has a problem would seek out this forum for help, and thus there is a higher concentration of problem threads here. To see this, just type in "NAD receiver problems" into Yahoo or google. You are likely to get several hits to this forum on the first page alone. So, if one only reads this forum, they may think there is an overabundance of problems. However, if you actually talk to those who deal with it every day and do some outside research, you would see that NAD has no quality control problem.
He also says that "when NAD dove headfirst into the HT arena". As far as I know, most of those who reported problems with their NADs had problems with the 7x3 line. I haven't followed NAD from the beginning, but I know that there was at least a 7x0 line, which would at the very least make the 7x3 line the 4th generation. NAD has more than proven that they can make quality receivers.
Gvenk
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Frank, I agree with you entirely that all equipment introduces coloration to a certain extent but disagree with the below:
"Some manufacturers are so bent on removing the colourations that the music becomes lifeless, losing that organic feel."
Assuming the recording has captured the original music, it does NOT require coloration to feel "organic" whatever that means. If it doesn't then it is a bad recording or bad music. We can record a piece of music with any "coloration" if we wanted to. Why would any musician knowingly want to record a "lifeless music that isn't organic"?
Coloration is the result of compromises that all manufacturers must make and different companies choose differently (while all of them attempting to minimize it as much as they can within their design constraints). Even when people talk of NAD sound, they are refering to the results of the compromises that NAD chooses to make not a sound coloration they are trying to engineer. Bose is the only manufacturer I know which seems to design for a specific coloration reflected in mass tastes.
In effect, we are the saying the same thing in describing the sound when I say "Rotel does not have a certain musical coloration" or when another says "Rotel is too precise/detailed to sound musical". But the latter is a mischaracterization of the problem. Only if we assume that some kind of a coloration MUST be introduced to make a system sound good and so that becomes the norm to judge by.
As a musician, if there was indeed such a norm then I would introduce such coloring in the recording itself ensuring that the integrity of my music is preserved and prefer that the system be as precise/detailed as possible.
The above problem is very easy to see in certain pop circles where an overemphasized thumping bass is desired by the listener and many a equipment is designed to introduce that but when a musician decides to do that emphasis in the recording itself, so that everyone can get the same feeling, it sounds like crap in these monstrous bass-boosted systems.
Why is this apparent hair-splitting important? Because for a musician, reproduction systems introducing their own individual colorations is the equivalent of computer makers introducing slight variations in the display (or worse the OS) which creates problems for the software manufacturer on how it is rendered. The software may not render as intended on certain "colorations" of the computer.
Having said that I do prefer certain system sounds to others but this is primarily on less than optimally recorded sources or lossy recording transmission/storage means in which case the system is making up for the lack of information or "noise" introduced compared to the original recording.
Unfortunately, there are far too many badly recorded sources for which some coloration may be the only hope. Precise/detailed systems only serve to expose those flaws but I wouldn't hold it against them
Gvenk
Unregistered guest
Posted on
It seems like NAD has taken that QC issues to heart because they have not released the L73 DVD/Receiver even after announcing it almost a year ago. They keep postponing its release every few months. Not sure if this is because of QC or feature creep. From what I hear, there is a strong pre-buy interest in this unit so it is not a questionable market as the reason.
Regardless of whether earlier NAD units had significant problems or not, they cannot avoid this kind of bad PR so I doubt that they will release anything in the future that stands a chance of people saying "see I told ya" and reinforces the previous perception.
But I do know some people that feel burned by NAD. But these were not for any noise problems because NAD refunded or replced any such units. So there should be no cause for complaint there. Some earlier units however seem to have died prematurely after the warranty period ended. Don't know how wide or how serious the problem was.
It's not as if their problems were accross the board, but they released more than their share of buggy models that werent ready for the marketplace through the years.
Everybody has certain brands that they'd never consider, and for me, NAD happens to be one of them. For you??....heck, it might be Yamaha. I happen to like my 2500 though
I auditioned the NAD 773 about a month ago. I had read all the negative things on here and went in with an open mind, since I love the sound of the NAD amps I've heard. The shop I went to pulled a brand new 773 from the back and set it up, since they did not have one on display. In the same demo room was a Marantz SR8400 and a Yamaha RXV2500. The NAD had the best sound of the 3, but it was also far and away the noisiest - there was a loud hiss coming from the unit with no source playing through it, and it was annoying during quiet parts of movies. The other 2 were completely silent. The NAD did sound great, but I could never live with it.
All I know is that my 2500 is dead quiet when it's supposed to be.(even at reference levels) For me, it's the perfect price/performance ratio for my personal tastes.
If I ever did upgrade, I wouldn't mess around, and would probably go with the YammiZ9, but at this point, I dont think it's price warrants the added value for my tastes.
just a personal preference thing.....The 2500 hits the mark though.
thank you all for your input. I will try get an opportunity to listen to both under simular conditions(difficult task).
Paul, you have been praizing the 2500. How often are you listening to music ...and does the 2500 have a sufficiantly good soundstage? I know it's a very capable HT system, but I'm sill in doubt and worried that I will be downgrading my music experience from my current NAD 304 amplifier (which sounds great ...but I need surround)
Paul is an HT guy he doesn't listen to music. Most folks who say NAD are music lovers like myself.
Anonymous
Posted on
Art
Not trying to be abrasive but I am curious to hear your comments about this and anyone else that can answer from experience.
I have heard that because NAD has a neutral sound that it is not good for home theater. I guess they must be feeling that it is laid back for movies and you don!t get a dynamic sound in that area.
Laid back sound for movies?? Movie soundtracks are typically much more demanding than music. I guess that all depends on what type of movies you watch. If you're into Artsy Sundance flicks with no special effects, maybe so???
Gvenk
Unregistered guest
Posted on
NAD like most other components is NOT neutral. They have their own idea of what the sound should be like to make it sound musical (which tends to be slightly warm in the case of NAD and suppression of any brightness in the moid-high frequencies).
They have more dynamic headroom than most other manufacturers so they have no problems in that regard for any application.
However, for HT applications which are typically run on lesser speakers with limited frequency range with most of the content in the midrange, the NAD amps at their default setting can sound quite tepid (mostly due to lack of brightness or enhanced mid frequencies and lack of any artificial boost at lower-mid frequencies). I have found boosting the bass setting (which ups the low-mid frequencies) on the NAD tone controls of their integerated amps provide a much better experience and matches better with the subwoofer used in HT applications.
NAD like many vendors has been primarily an audio company focusing on music reproduction and still consider that as their niche but the new HT maket is too lucrative to miss out on.
Sorry if this was another anonymous set up question for Paul but assuming it is legit.
