Im getting tired of waiting for my tax returns getting back to me so I can buy the NAD C270 amp. But is the sound between NAD and yamaha like day and night difference?
Sarandon
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Matt that is a BIG YES!! There is a night and day difference between the two! The Yamaha has a bright, but highly detailed sound to them (excluding the RX-V1400 and up models). If you were to use a bright speaker like Klipsch with that receiver, your ears might bleed. But if you have a warm sounding receiver like NAD, the Klipsch would go great together! The thing about it, me being a loyal Yamaha fan, I know for a fact that the NAD can and WILL RUN CIRCLES AROUND Yamaha. It has a better build quality, better capacitors and few other things I cannot recall at this time. Oh if you do like DSP modes like me (ex. Hall or Stadium, or Rock Concert) the NAD does not have them. But they do have EARS. You probably have to ask Hawk or Elitefan or Johnny about them. Oh and Matt do listen to the Three Wise Men that I just mentioned a while ago. They are Top Notch Guru's when it comes to Surround sound receivers!! Oh one more thing, NAD underrates their receivers. and Yamaha overrates there's. But I would listen to the both of them and see what you like.
i agree with most of the last person's comments, particularly about speaker matching, but the reverse is ALSO true, if you have warmish or polite speakers, then NAD is a bad choice.
i HATE NAD's rolled off treble with 8 ohm softdome tweeters. i have NHT superzeros and love how much BETTER they sound with my onkyo 5 channel reciever.
the brighter onkyo unit really helped my super zero's treble by giving it clearly noticeable extension and clarity and greatly improved imaging capability.
in comparison, the NAD leans toward "SONY" sound... a bit muffled and overly polite.
one other factor not mentioned is cost. you can easily get a decent yamaha/denon/onkyo for probably HALF the price of an NAD and get better treble with 8 ohm speakers. i LOVE my onkyo and was pleasantly surprised that a $250 home theater reciever outperformed a dedicated $400 (when new) 2 channel unit for CD listening.
it is true that NAD is alot more conservative with their ratings, particularly power, but for speakers with softdome tweeters, i would not buy and NAD even if it were the SAME price as y/d/o.
with brighter metal domed speakers like B&W or the overly bright mission M71s with softdomes, then NAD is a good choice. if you really want killer sound on a budget, NAD is great because unlike virtually EVERY affardable reciever, NADs can safely handle 4 ohm loads and work well with cheap magnepan speakers (MMG).
in the future, i WILL buy NAD again NOT because it sounds better, but because it's the only game in town for anyone who wants to use magnepans or other 4 ohm speakers without frying their amp.
i'm not too happy that NAD will make already treble polite maggies even more rolled off, but it's a fairly decent trade off for midrange heaven.
if you aren't going to use 4 ohm speakers or overly bright speakers, then yamaha would sound better. i wish my onkyo were just a little bit brighter still for my superzeros which are more than warm enough for my tastes.
either reciever could be nice if properly matched. NAD would tame overly bright speakers while yamaha (etc.) would breathe life into overly polite or warm speakers. if onkyo didn't expressly forbid 4 ohm loading, i'd go that route with magnepans. they don't, so NAD is a necessary evil.
Thanks for the great edvice, its a good thing that my speakers are somewhat bright. For those DSP effects I absolutely hate them! I would like something stripped down to a few opitions, in otherwords, less is more.
I hoping this month my taxes will come and I will finaly get my new amp! cheers
Welp, I just ordered the NAD C270 and it should arrive this tuesday. I'm not sure what to expect or react. I also of new cables on their way too. So I hope my money is well spent.
Got another Discussion string going on the speaker forum. Being told not to pair Klipch RB75s with my old Yamaha RX-595. Can't replace the Yamaha right now but have fallen in love with the RB75s. Can't a little treble tone control reduction take the edge off of the combination??
When we say that a receiver or speaker is bright, it isn't that the treble is over-emphasized, but the upper midrange, specifically, the 2-4Khz band. That is the range that give a component a distinctive sound, and will cause a listener to judge its level of detail. So, to answer your question, no. Turning down the treble tone control rarely affects the frequency band in question.
If you have fallen in love with the RB75s, I would go ahead and get them, but with the full knowledge that sometime soon you will most likely want to change your amp driving them. I do not know your receiver, so I cannot say whether it is too bright to use with the Klipsch as some other later Yamaha receivers are (such as the RX-V630 mentioned above) which might cause thoughts of suicide (when I hear a system that is extremely bright, I am reminded of Edvard Munch's painting of "The Scream"). Certainly, changing one's receiver can be a costly proposition. However, if you do find the sound is too bright or you simply find yourself shutting off the music before a full CD finishes playing ("listener fatigue"--a common result of a system that is too bright), you may find it cheaper to simply get an outboard amp to drive your Klipsch, leaving the receiver to drive the remaining channels (if it is an A/V receiver--since you say it is an "RX" series and not an "RX-V", that would indicate it is stereo only). I would recommend the B & K 55.2 power amp as an excellent amp for those speakers, and would only cost a little under $400. It is rated conservatively at 55 wpc x 2, but it has a very warm sound that matches well with the Klipsch, and you would probably find it has more real power than your Yamaha, which you could use as your pre-amp.
If your receiver is stereo only, I suspect it would not be as bright sounding as the RX-V630, et al. Those receivers, as A/V receivers, have a badly undersized power supply that was not capable of properly driving five channels at the same time. Consequently, when they are trying to drive five channels, they tended to get thin and reedy sounding, which is where the real problems come in. They are bright in stereo only applications, but the really objectionable sound came when they were driving more than two channels. So, your receiver would not have this problem if it is a stereo only receiver, in which case, you may find the Klipsch to work fine with yor Yamaha.
Thanks for the reply. I've been out of audio for a long time and this forum is a real education. Yes, the Yamaha RX-595 is a stereo only receiver of early '90s vintage. 80 watts per channel.
I thought so. I was out of the audio loop then, having put together a rather expensive Kyocera system that emptied my bank account (shortly before Kyocera dropped out of the audio business, of course). I have had two Yamaha receivers (I still have one in the garage for listening when I am working there or out in the yard), and I like the Yamaha stereo receivers very much. However, I cannot tell you when Yamaha developed this problem with a very bright sound. It is very pronounced on their lower end A/V receivers and I haven't seen a Yamaha stereo receiver for several years (I am not sure they exist, but I just know haven't seen them at dealers). As you can glean from my earlier post, I really don't know whether your Yamaha suffers from that anomaly, so the only way to know is to get the Klipsch you love and take them home for a trial. A good dealer will allow you to bring them back if they don't sound acceptable in your home. Alternatively, I have been known to carry my receiver in to the sudio store to try it out there in the store. If you go when the dealer doesn't have a lot of traffic, most dealers will plug your receiver into their board to try out speakers--I have never had a dealer turn me down. I would suggest you try this option to see what you think. I would note that you will be hard pressed to find a better sounding stereo receiver today as almost all of the big japanese mass market receiver companies have turned their back on stereo to concentrate on A/V receivers. I have done home trials with several different stereo receivers (for use in my study) and they all sound lifeless--absolutely no depth to the soundstage and the image is two dimensional, at best. I ended up with a Rotel stereo receiver (MSRP $800, but I got it considerably less which is why I got it) which is the level you have to get to to get a good sounding stereo receiver. Most people today opt for an stereo integrated amp instead as there are a number of very good integrateds out there for a reasonable amount of money ($600 and less), such as NAD, Rotel, and Cambridge Audio, and if you go a bit higher in price, Arcam. So, I would be careful before I changed my receiver if all you want is stereo because there are so few good options.
Now, having said that, I must admit that you have several more good options if you get an A/V receiver. I was strongly considering an NAD T742 for my study as it was only $449 and I heard it in stereo and it was very, very good. The sound was an absolute killer for the money as it had the quality of sound that I was actively seeking. In fact, it was much better in both stereo and HT than my Denon 3803, which cost more than twice as much, and eventually lead me to dump the Denon in favor of an NAD T753 for my family room HT. So, besides stereo receivers and integrateds, there is nothing to keep you from getting a good A/V receiver for your stereo listening as many audio companies put there best stuff into their A/V receivers. But again, I caution you to listen carefully because not all of them are better--many of the mass market A/V receivers in the under $1K price bracket are still somewhat dodgy with an indifferent sound that would be a real disappointment.
Hawk, How much difference would there be pairing up my NAD c270 with a NAD preamp vs. using my Yamaha? I'm assuming A LOT, so I think the next step would be investing in the 6 channel NAD preamp.
Stephen
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I have a Yamaha RX-395 receiver, a Yamaha CDC-565 CD player and Paradigm Mini Monitor speakers. The CD player started skipping all the time and often it can't play anything. I got it fixed, but then it broke again. So I need a new CD player.
After doing some reading I've noticed that others have similar problems with Yamaha CD players, so I'm thinking of upgrading to a NAD C521 CD player. Any opinions on this? Also I'm thinking of replacing my receiver with a NAD C740. Do you guys think that this is a good choice for my speakers and how much of an improvement should I expect? Also, what else would you recommend in this price range or lower?