Debating switching from Yamaha to NAD

[sakete]

I did do an A/B comparison as well as I could. I had both my Marantz and my NAD powered on and I had my better half move the XLR cables back and forth between the two processors. I used an SPL meter to ensure that the levels were equal. I did this for her and she did it for me. We did this with room correction both enabled and disabled.

We didn't share our opinions until we finished testing, but we both subjectively agreed in every way that the NAD sounded better. More separation in instruments, better imaging, clearer and more realistic vocals.

If you don't believe me, check out the Audioholics 2019 Processor comparison YouTube video starting at this time stamp where Shane's experiences echo mine:

The HDMI issue Shane mentioned has since been resolved by NAD in the latest firmware update (in my testing at least).

Good, I'm glad you went through the effort to do a decent side by side comparison. You mentioned XLR cables though, are you using active speakers, and if so were you using the pre-outs instead of the receiver's amp section? As far as I know the NAD doesn't have XLR outputs.

 

[bommai]

Funny, I just called the dealer I bought the A2070 from and he almost talked me out of returning the A2070. His opinion was that I really won't gain that much going from YPAO to Audyssey or Dirac/AARC. To the point where now I'm considering if I should just stick with what I have (and save a ton of money in the process), and maybe still just try the REW + Manual PEQ approach? I don't know...

Why don’t you try Dirac through your PC/Mac and see how well it works. There is a free 2 week trial. I tried that a few years ago and it made a difference and mine is not even a challenging room. I have a denon 4300 right now but I miss my nad sound. (I got the denon on sale for $675 for 4K and atmos). There is just something missing. I am using an older nad t763 as a power amp though. Also I am using a nad t775hd in my downstairs system. This used to be my main receiver but now relegated to the living room because it cannot pass through 4K and cannot do atmos. But I miss this sound in my theater room. One day I will upgrade to the T777 or equivalent from nad.


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[Pogre]

I did do an A/B comparison as well as I could. I had both my Marantz and my NAD powered on and I had my better half move the XLR cables back and forth between the two processors. I used an SPL meter to ensure that the levels were equal. I did this for her and she did it for me. We did this with room correction both enabled and disabled.

We didn't share our opinions until we finished testing, but we both subjectively agreed in every way that the NAD sounded better. More separation in instruments, better imaging, clearer and more realistic vocals.

If you don't believe me, check out the Audioholics 2019 Processor comparison YouTube video starting at this time stamp where Shane's experiences echo mine:

The HDMI issue Shane mentioned has since been resolved by NAD in the latest firmware update (in my testing at least).

He said it was his favorite, but I didn't hear him say anything about separation, imaging, clarity, etc...

 

[aarodynamics]

He said it was his favorite, but I didn't hear him say anything about separation, imaging, clarity, etc...

It was a really long video... I may have got the time stamp wrong, but watch the entire thing and you’ll hear him say it.

 

[aarodynamics]

Good, I'm glad you went through the effort to do a decent side by side comparison. You mentioned XLR cables though, are you using active speakers, and if so were you using the pre-outs instead of the receiver's amp section? As far as I know the NAD doesn't have XLR outputs.

The M17 has XLR pre-outs.
I’m using an Emotiva amp with B&W 804 D3 speakers.

 

[sakete]

The M17 has XLR pre-outs.
I’m using an Emotiva amp with B&W 804 D3 speakers.

So you were comparing a Marantz receiver to NAD's top of the line separate pre-pro? Yeah.... That's apples and oranges man.

A NAD receiver will likely not perform the same as their high end separate.

So for the sake of this thread, let's keep the discussion to receivers only please.

 

[aarodynamics]

So you were comparing a Marantz receiver to NAD's top of the line separate pre-pro? Yeah.... That's apples and oranges man.

A NAD receiver will likely not perform the same as their high end separate.

So for the sake of this thread, let's keep the discussion to receivers only please.

My Marantz AV7703 is a pre/pro as well and is fairly top of the line for Denon/Marantz.

I also have a different location in my house with a Denon AVR-X3500H Receiver. I've compared the X3500H & the AV7703 in the past out of curiosity and found that the Denon/Marantz models didn't have a significant difference between their mid-tier and high-end models to my ears.

I also own a NAD T758 V3 (replaced my X3500H) and my experience is that its sound signature is closer to the NAD M17 V2 than it is to a comparable Denon/Yamaha/Onkyo model.

 

[PENG]

Again, my NAD integrated amp does not sound better than even the X3400H, so as they say, we all hear differently. somehow I am very sensitive to difference between speakers, some times even different DACs (no blind test done though),but amps prepros, avrs, no noticeable difference in direct/pure direct music listening. We can do a poll, or keep debating if it was just Placebo, but without sitting together and do some DBT or even SBT sessions, all other efforts are going to be futile at best, imo..

 

[sakete]

Why don’t you try Dirac through your PC/Mac and see how well it works. There is a free 2 week trial. I tried that a few years ago and it made a difference and mine is not even a challenging room. I have a denon 4300 right now but I miss my nad sound. (I got the denon on sale for $675 for 4K and atmos). There is just something missing. I am using an older nad t763 as a power amp though. Also I am using a nad t775hd in my downstairs system. This used to be my main receiver but now relegated to the living room because it cannot pass through 4K and cannot do atmos. But I miss this sound in my theater room. One day I will upgrade to the T777 or equivalent from nad.


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Searching for Dirac free trial results in nothing. It's a dead link on the Dirac website, maybe they don't offer it anymore.

 

[sakete]

Ok, I took a bunch of measurements. Below two graphs:

Left speaker

Right speaker

Overall conclusion, the way YPAO applies filters gives a pretty decently flat response. For the left speaker it removes a spike around 50hz, which gives an overall flatter response. For the right speaker, which is in a corner, it again removes the huge peak between 30hz and 60hz, and is able to flatten it a bit. The right speaker does have huge dip at 90hz, and that'll probably only be solvable with positioning and treatment. It can technically be EQed, but it would probably cause distortion/clipping as it would need to really up the gain around that frequency.

I generated some EQ filters in REW but none of those lined up with what I can set in the Yamaha. I had to manually enter Freq values and had REW optimize the Gain and Q. Results not that great, or at least, not any better than what YPAO did.

So overall, YPAO does a pretty decent job. Not sure if Dirac or Audyssey would improve on this much. Thoughts?

 

[PENG]

Searching for Dirac free trial results in nothing. It's a dead link on the Dirac website, maybe they don't offer it anymore.

I think you are right, that they don't offer that any more, or not yet anyway. They seem to be focusing on their new targets, ie NAD, Arcam, minidsp and a few others.

 

[PENG]

So overall, YPAO does a pretty decent job. Not sure if Dirac or Audyssey would improve on this much. Thoughts?

It is hard to say the way the graphs are shown. Can you just show two graphs, one for "straight"/direct, and the other with YPAO applied? What smoothing did you use, your graphs do not show, 1/24 or 1/48 would be good for comparison purposes. Excellent job if this is your first attempt to use REW! It isn't hard to use but not too simple either.

 

[sakete]

It is hard to say the way the graphs are shown. Can you just show two graphs, one for "straight"/direct, and the other with YPAO applied? What smoothing did you use, your graphs do not show, 1/24 or 1/48 would be good for comparison purposes. Excellent job if this is your first attempt to use REW! It isn't hard to use but not too simple either.

I'll post more graphs later as I'm doing other stuff right now, but I'm using their variable smoothing, which is what was recommended in a guide I followed if the goal was to apply EQ.

 

[sakete]

It is hard to say the way the graphs are shown. Can you just show two graphs, one for "straight"/direct, and the other with YPAO applied? What smoothing did you use, your graphs do not show, 1/24 or 1/48 would be good for comparison purposes. Excellent job if this is your first attempt to use REW! It isn't hard to use but not too simple either.

 

[PENG]

Looks quite good actually, I don't know about Dirac Live but I would think that Audyssey XT32 can do a little better in terms of flatter response. That's just a guess based on what it did for me. You should do a sweep with both channel on at the same time, i.e. stereo mode.

 

[PENG]

I'll post more graphs later as I'm doing other stuff right now, but I'm using their variable smoothing, which is what was recommended in a guide I followed if the goal was to apply EQ.

For listening that's fine, for comparison and analysis purposes, I would stick with 1/48, or 1/24.

 

[sakete]

Looks quite good actually, I don't know about Dirac Live but I would think that Audyssey XT32 can do a little better in terms of flatter response. That's just a guess based on what it did for me. You should do a sweep with both channel on at the same time, i.e. stereo mode.

Yeah, maybe Audyssey or Dirac could fix those 2 dips around 100hz, and then my bass would be nicely linear. With manual PEQ I can't really fix it as the freqs are locked to 78hz, 99hz, 115hz. I tried tweaking it a lot already through the values REW generated (you can lock the frequency and just have it adjust gain and Q) but I just couldn't get it close enough to even out that dip (particularly on the right speaker it's huge).

 

[PENG]

So you were comparing a Marantz receiver to NAD's top of the line separate pre-pro? Yeah.... That's apples and oranges man.

A NAD receiver will likely not perform the same as their high end separate.

So for the sake of this thread, let's keep the discussion to receivers only please.

I see no evidence it could out perform D&M's competing models either. If anything, it's more likely the other way around.

Crosstalk at 1 kHz driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm load was –83.27 dB left to right and –84.88 dB right to left. The signal-to-noise ratio with an 8-ohm load from 10 Hz to 24 kHz with “A” weighting was –93.81 dBrA.

Crosstalk at 1 kHz driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm load was –82.08 dB left to right and –80.79 dB right to left. The signal-to-noise ratio with an 8-ohm load from 10 Hz to 24 kHz with “A” weighting was –109.98 dBrA.

 

[PENG]

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Yeah, maybe Audyssey or Dirac could fix those 2 dips around 100hz, and then my bass would be nicely linear. With manual PEQ I can't really fix it as the freqs are locked to 78hz, 99hz, 115hz. I tried tweaking it a lot already through the values REW generated (you can lock the frequency and just have it adjust gain and Q) but I just couldn't get it close enough to even out that dip (particularly on the right speaker it's huge).

I doubt that, XT32 could probably reduce those dips by a couple dB more at best. As you know, dips are tough to deal with. It does look like YPAO did a great job for you, you may be able to improve it further with some manual tweaking, but I really doubt you can do much better. Between 30 and 200 Hz, if you ignore the huge dips, you are within +/- 3.5 to 4 dB, that is really respectable for 1/48 smoothing.

 

[Pogre]

It is hard to say the way the graphs are shown. Can you just show two graphs, one for "straight"/direct, and the other with YPAO applied? What smoothing did you use, your graphs do not show, 1/24 or 1/48 would be good for comparison purposes. Excellent job if this is your first attempt to use REW! It isn't hard to use but not too simple either.

Absolutely. REW is not plug n play. I did my due diligence and still had to trial and error my way into a successful measurement, lol.