Debating switching from Yamaha to NAD

[Deckard71]

I'd recommend purchasing one of the receivers you're considering from a place with an in-home trial or generous return policy and deciding for yourself in your own home. I think you'll be impressed with the results.

Thanks. But I don’t find a dealer who would let me try for some days

 

[sakete]

Thanks. I will keep my Yamaha then

Yep, same. The measurements don't lie and the only way I'll get improvements in my room is with acoustic treatments.

 

[sakete]

Thanks. But I don’t find a dealer who would let me try for some days

If you live in the US, you can try Crutchfield.

 

[PENG]

Yep, same. The measurements don't lie and the only way I'll get improvements in my room is with acoustic treatments.

By the way, I emailed Dirac and got a response about the standalone system. It is being replaced but the new version is not available yet.

 

[Pogre]

How does it feel to be able to measure your own speakers?

For me it was a revelation. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot from my experience. For me the best part was the ability to see what I was hearing. And when corrected it was almost like getting new speakers.

It amazed me how much just moving things around can have a profound effect on what you hear. I think a lot of folks feel like their equipment isn't up to the task and replace or buy new without understanding room acoustics.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I am getting there, please don't help.. FYI, I would likely wait until they upgrade that LSI vol IC like D&M has already. Not that I believe it would make a difference, but to me, wants are as important as needs.

I don't think you have any reasons yet to switch, even if Yamaha upgrades the vol IC.

I had several reasons, past and present.

Now if Yamaha takes what Gene says and turns the CX-A5300 into a SOTA pre-pro that has even better measurements than the SOTA CX-A5100, that might do it. So we expect SNR 135dB, XT 110dB, and THD 0.001% with 6Vrms.

 

[PENG]

I think the salient thing is the actual speaker.

When we have accurate speakers, YPAO, Audyssey, Dirac, and ARC can produce accurate RF.

The room accoustics (hard floors without rugs and glass windows without drapes, etc.) can compound the problem, but it starts with the speakers.

Yeah, I think the best ones can deal with more challenging rooms (or speakers), but all of the one you listed are try and true enough that they should be able to do a decent job too in most cases. The reported night and day, huge improvements sort of things are usually just over hypes/exaggerated to make a point.

 

[sakete]

Exactly. Try Auto Room Correction on some speakers that measure +/-6dB to begin with.

The trending consensus on this thread is to buy accurate speakers.

Are you able to try the NAD/Dirac risk-free (no extra money)? If so, I think many of us would LOVE to see your comparisons.

How does it feel to be able to measure your own speakers?

Well... I could try buying that Open Box NAD T777 V3 I had my eye one (I would have gone for the T777 if I would have switched to NAD as it has more similar power ratings to the A2070 than the T758). That store, an authorized dealer, appears to have a good return policy and I should be able to get a full refund if I were to return it. But not sure yet if I want to deal with the hassle and the angry stares my wife will give me when she sees another big box arrive on the doorstep and I have to get her and the baby out the door so I can run measurements at 90dB And I'm also happy keeping the Yamaha.

Otherwise, it's great to measure my own speakers. I find it very reassuring to see the results of YPAO and that it does a very respectable job of evening out the bass response given the limitation of my room and non-ideal speaker placement.

I did end up copying YPAO Natural over to Manual PEQ and flattened out everything above 500hz. I noticed that between YPAO Natural and Pure Direct, the measurement above 500hz was pretty similar anyway, so I figured best to not mess with the voicing in the mids and highs.

 

[sakete]

Ehh, I'm not going to order the NAD. It would only be with the likely intent of returning it again, and I don't want to do that to a smaller online retailer. I would probably regardless of the outcome keep the Yamaha as it just has more features, and I use the Yamaha Android app a ton. NAD doesn't even have an official Android app. Also the NAD doesn't appear to support Dolby Vision or HDR, and the next time I upgrade my TV I'll likely go the 4K HDR/Dolby Vision route. The A2070 supports all of this stuff already so I won't need to upgrade the receiver anytime soon.

I also just don't think Dirac will make a significant difference in my room, it's not like it can do magic. I guess my room isn't as challenging as I thought it was, but it helps a lot to have good speakers. YPAO also does impulse response compensation as both my speakers are perfectly time aligned (looked at those measurements as well).

When Dirac does release the newer version of their software with a free trial, I'll do some comparison measurements for sure and post them here. But I'm not going to buy a whole receiver and then return it, just to do that, just doesn't seem right.

So unless someone wants to lend (or donate even, I won't mind ) me a NAD with Dirac, I will not be posting a YPAO vs Dirac comparison anytime soon.

 

[PENG]

But I'm not going to buy a whole receiver and then return it, just to do that, just doesn't seem right.

Fully agreed, I have never done that, and never will, not intentionally for sure.

So unless someone wants to lend (or donate even, I won't mind ) me a NAD with Dirac, I will not be posting a YPAO vs Dirac comparison anytime soon.

I am planning on trying it soon, so there is a chance that I may end up posting such a comparison.

 

[Auditor55]

I considered the MiniDSP, but it's only useful for subwoofers. It will not allow me to equalize my main front speakers' low-end response (unless of course I buy a separate amp),as I currently do not have a subwoofer and it'll be a while until I have one (it'll be a tough sell for my wife to get a huge subwoofer in the living room). With my current 2ch speakers (Revel F206),the bass response in direct mode is very uneven across the frequency range (some frequencies are very loud, others aren't). With YPAO it improved some, but still not that great (and I can't set a target curve with YPAO anyway).

So that's why I'm looking at either a Dirac based solution since it should be the bees knees, or otherwise Audyssey XT32 as Peng's comment got me thinking. Though I don't like the fact that Denon/Marantz will downsample everything to 48khz when using Audyssey. But I don't know if NAD downsamples the signal for Dirac. I know that Yamaha doesn't downsample anything for YPAO. In the end it probably doesn't really matter, but I'm kind of anal and like knowing that the source signal isn't being resampled

You're probably going to need subwoofers to get what you want. Even eq won't get it.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Ehh, I'm not going to order the NAD. It would only be with the likely intent of returning it again, and I don't want to do that to a smaller online retailer. I would probably regardless of the outcome keep the Yamaha as it just has more features, and I use the Yamaha Android app a ton. NAD doesn't even have an official Android app. Also the NAD doesn't appear to support Dolby Vision or HDR, and the next time I upgrade my TV I'll likely go the 4K HDR/Dolby Vision route. The A2070 supports all of this stuff already so I won't need to upgrade the receiver anytime soon.

I also just don't think Dirac will make a significant difference in my room, it's not like it can do magic. I guess my room isn't as challenging as I thought it was, but it helps a lot to have good speakers. YPAO also does impulse response compensation as both my speakers are perfectly time aligned (looked at those measurements as well).

When Dirac does release the newer version of their software with a free trial, I'll do some comparison measurements for sure and post them here. But I'm not going to buy a whole receiver and then return it, just to do that, just doesn't seem right.

So unless someone wants to lend (or donate even, I won't mind ) me a NAD with Dirac, I will not be posting a YPAO vs Dirac comparison anytime soon.

I think many people would be very happy to achieve those REW graphs from ANY Auto room EQ.

I think you got about +/-2.5dB response on that first green graph from 100Hz-20kHz. Even the 1/48 smoothing graphs looked pretty great.

So don't sell it short. YPAO did a great job. Just because YPAO didn't cost $2,000 doesn't mean it's any less effective. Those graphs are the proof-in-the-putting.

IMO, there is little point trying to improve on +/-2.5dB or +/-3dB response, even if you could. Once you've reached this point, the only other thing would be to focus on the subs for that 20Hz-100Hz response, which I wouldn't want to be FLAT anyway.

Oh, yeah, I've said it many times, but I do love the Yamaha remote app and MusicCast app since they work so awesome for me. Hard to give them up.

The only other Pre-pro I would consider is the upcoming ATI ATP-16, but I really don't want to give up that awesome Yamaha remote app and MusicCast app.

 

[sakete]

I think many people would be very happy to achieve those REW graphs from ANY Auto room EQ.

I think you got about +/-2.5dB response on that first green graph from 100Hz-20kHz. Even the 1/48 smoothing graphs looked pretty great.

So don't sell it short. YPAO did a great job. Just because YPAO didn't cost $2,000 doesn't mean it's any less effective. Those graphs are the proof-in-the-putting.

IMO, there is little point trying to improve on +/-2.5dB or +/-3dB response, even if you could. Once you've reached this point, the only other thing would be to focus on the subs for that 20Hz-100Hz response, which I wouldn't want to be FLAT anyway.

Oh, yeah, I've said it many times, but I do love the Yamaha remote app and MusicCast app since they work so awesome for me. Hard to give them up.

The only other Pre-pro I would consider is the upcoming ATI ATP-16, but I really don't want to give up that awesome Yamaha remote app and MusicCast app.

Oh I'm not selling it short. I'm very pleased with the result, and it also sounds good. At most I might fine-tune the bass so that there's a little bit more oomph, because as you said, THE MORE BASS THE BETTER!!!!! (which is why someday I'll add a sub, just not in the short-term as I first need to recover from spending all this money on speakers + AVR).

And yeah, I love the Yamaha apps. Very stable and smooth on Android. I use it all the time to turn on YPAO Volume + DRC for late night TV watching, or to raise/lower dialogue volume. Honestly, the only thing it's missing is direct control for Lip Sync as it drives me nuts that depending on if I'm watching Netflix or HBO GO, or streaming through Plex, I keep having to adjust Lip Sync (and I'm very sensitive to it, drives me bonkers when audio is out of sync with video). The Denon/Marantz apps are very crappy by comparison, and the NAD apps are non-existent (well there is BluOS I guess).

If I ever go the Pre-Pro route, I'll get the Yamaha A5xxx and a Monolith amplifier, or something like that. But that's at least a few years away, maybe if we ever finish the basement as I'll then pretend to my wife that WE NEED MORE POWER!!

One question, do you think those dips in the bass response around 100hz could be solved by using bass traps? Or would only repositioning the speakers solve that?

 

[sakete]

I do hope one day Yamaha will allow a fully editable Manual PEQ with 10 filters instead of 7. Perhaps only editable through the web interface setup for advanced users, but that would be a really powerful feature to add. It's a bit frustrating that you can't edit the frequency mid-point, only the Q and gain.

 

[Deckard71]

I do hope one day Yamaha will allow a fully editable Manual PEQ with 10 filters instead of 7. Perhaps only editable through the web interface setup for advanced users, but that would be a really powerful feature to add. It's a bit frustrating that you can't edit the frequency mid-point, only the Q and gain.

Or a graph EQ via web. Or even better, optional Dirac for the top tier models.

One thing I noticed few weeks ago, is that when you change the EQ, you can hear it as you do it, that is really helpful. E.g. when EQ’ing the center channel to achieve the clearest dialogue, I played a loop with a scene of a movie with dialogues, and I was able to tweak the EQ until I got what I want

 

[sakete]

Or a graph EQ via web. Or even better, optional Dirac for the top tier models.

One thing I noticed few weeks ago, is that when you change the EQ, you can hear it as you do it, that is really helpful. E.g. when EQ’ing the center channel to achieve the clearest dialogue, I played a loop with a scene of a movie with dialogues, and I was able to tweak the EQ until I got what I want

It's probably a long shot, but I sent Yamaha an email requesting they expand the number of filters from 7 to 10, and allow people to edit the actual frequencies, if only through the web setup. Also asked them to remove the limitation of only 4 usable filters below 500hz.

 

[JStewart]

Also the NAD doesn't appear to support Dolby Vision or HDR,

It does. Pass through for both. The 758 and 777 do zero video processing.
Yamaha's a good choice. I liked the 3 that came before the NAD for many of the reasons you stated.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Oh I'm not selling it short. I'm very pleased with the result, and it also sounds good. At most I might fine-tune the bass so that there's a little bit more oomph, because as you said, THE MORE BASS THE BETTER!!!!! (which is why someday I'll add a sub, just not in the short-term as I first need to recover from spending all this money on speakers + AVR).

And yeah, I love the Yamaha apps. Very stable and smooth on Android. I use it all the time to turn on YPAO Volume + DRC for late night TV watching, or to raise/lower dialogue volume. Honestly, the only thing it's missing is direct control for Lip Sync as it drives me nuts that depending on if I'm watching Netflix or HBO GO, or streaming through Plex, I keep having to adjust Lip Sync (and I'm very sensitive to it, drives me bonkers when audio is out of sync with video). The Denon/Marantz apps are very crappy by comparison, and the NAD apps are non-existent (well there is BluOS I guess).

If I ever go the Pre-Pro route, I'll get the Yamaha A5xxx and a Monolith amplifier, or something like that. But that's at least a few years away, maybe if we ever finish the basement as I'll then pretend to my wife that WE NEED MORE POWER!!

One question, do you think those dips in the bass response around 100hz could be solved by using bass traps? Or would only repositioning the speakers solve that?

I think the dips can solved with more subs.

I think the Yamaha CX-A5000 series are best bang for the pre-pro-buck. Sound awesome. Great Apps. And if they are as reliable as they should be, I just can’t see myself using anything else.

 

[Topmetom2]

Interesting, i have a nad, looking going the other way

 

[sakete]

Interesting, i have a nad, looking going the other way

That is interesting What's making you consider going the other way?