New Amp Questions

[con7711]

Hey everyone,

Just purchased a new Amp yesterday a Yamaha RN 602. This was an upgrade to my old NAD 7140.
I'm running Elac Debut 2.0 6.2 bookshelves.
Other then the new Yamaha the system is exactly the same, with a cd player and a turntable.
I sit about 10 feet from speakers & haven't changed the placement.

Hooked it all up last night and noticed something unexpected. When I play a CD it didn't sound as good as the NAD. The NAD only has RCA inputs. I tried both RCA and Digital Coax into the Yamaha, but neither had that wow factor I had with the NAD (playing the same CD's). I also noticed the imaging wasn't as nice as the NAD and the Yamaha sounded a bit brighter.
I also noticed I need to crank the Yamaha to about -10 to match the volume of the NAD at about 25% volume.
Tried using the pure direct mode on the Yamaha as well & no change.

Then I tried playing Tidal (FLAC 44.1) through the network connect (via Tidal). This sounded exceptionally better than the CD. I actually played the same songs, switching back and forth between the CD digital connection, CD RCA connection, than to Tidal (via the network). The network sounded better on each track, and the volume was louder as well.

Any ideas here?

When I purchased the system my fear was that the network would not live up to expectations but I fully expected CD's to sound the same (if not better).

Note: I also played some records through the phono stage of the Yamaha and they sound very similar to the phono stage on the NAD (just less power/volume through the Yamaha).

Any ideas why the CD's sound worse? Could it be I need to fiddle with the speaker placement with the new amp?

Thanks, everyone!

 

[slipperybidness]

1st item, don't worry about differences in the settings on the volume knob. Those settings or "%s" as you called them are completely arbitrary.

Next item, don't worry about changing speaker positioning with a new amp. The amp has nothing to do with the positioning of the speakers and the room acoustics.

Since it sounds great/similar to the NAD for other connections, it makes me suspect that you have something going on with the CD input, perhaps some setting but I would think pure direct would eliminate that.

Did you try the RCAs on one of the other inputs, like 1 or 2?

What CD player?

 

[con7711]

1st item, don't worry about differences in the settings on the volume knob. Those settings or "%s" as you called them are completely arbitrary.

Next item, don't worry about changing speaker positioning with a new amp. The amp has nothing to do with the positioning of the speakers and the room acoustics.

Since it sounds great/similar to the NAD for other connections, it makes me suspect that you have something going on with the CD input, perhaps some setting but I would think pure direct would eliminate that.

Did you try the RCAs on one of the other inputs, like 1 or 2?

What CD player?

i did try other RCA inputs. Same quality. It's not horrible, just not as good as the NAD.

CD player is a circa 2007 Pioneer (perhaps the issue?)

 

[markw]

If that same Cd player sounded good on the NAD but not on the Yammie, it's not the CD player. Many people don't realize that NAD really does turn out a pretty good product.

As you're learning, "change", "newer", or "upgrade" is easy but that does not guarantee "better".

 

[Leemix]

If you now play cds at a slightly lower volume that can explain the lack of wow factor since you write streaming sounds so good, it might not though or only partially. New same «level» integrated amps doesnt mean better especially for the analogue parts and powersupply.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[PENG]

i did try other RCA inputs. Same quality. It's not horrible, just not as good as the NAD.

CD player is a circa 2007 Pioneer (perhaps the issue?)

I took a quick look of the specs and schematics of both. The power amp output specs look very comparable, on paper the R-N602 looks stronger but in practice the difference would be negligible. The Yamaha may do a little better in transient outputs, its rail voltage may be higher as the caps are rated 63V vs the NAD's 50V.

The Yamaha actually has a better DAC for the networks, coax and optical, better than the one used in their integrated amps A-S301 through 801. So I highly doubt your CD's internal DAC can compare, unless that circa 2007 Pioneer is one of their top ranking ones back in those days. You should stick with the digital outputs if the Pioneer has them, but make sure you set it to bit stream in order to take advantage of the R-N602's DAC.

Even in an ideal situation when both are set up correctly (volume matched, pure direct, no tone/EQ enabled etc.), whether the NAD sounded better to you could still be a subjective thing. Chances are good that the Yamaha has a more neutral sound than that very old NAD. Also, the NAD does not have anything like pure direct that the Yamaha has, so for a fair comparison, please make sure all the tone control, equalization related knobs and buttons are set to neutral, off etc.

 

[lovinthehd]

The one thing that struck me was the varying volume levels, hard to make good comparisons with sonic memory to begin with, let alone not level matched.

 

[Kvn_Walker]

The one thing that struck me was the varying volume levels, hard to make good comparisons with sonic memory to begin with, let alone not level matched.

Yeah wouldn't hurt to use a dB meter or multimeter to ensure they are at the same output level and then listen comparatively.

I don't doubt they have a different sound signature; the electronics are not identical (also a notable age difference). But it is also true that many people do perceive a volume difference as a quality difference, so it's worth a try to eliminate that factor. I've had a couple Yamaha receivers and one integrated amp, and have always found them "laid back" which is more to my liking anyway, but not bright. Yours could have some kind of issue in the electronics, once you've ruled out everything else.

 

[JerryLove]

I don't doubt they have a different sound signature; the electronics are not identical (also a notable age difference).

For the amp alone (not talking about whatever processing might be happening pre amp); that's usually (IME) only in edge cases. Slew rates against high capacitance or issues with very low ohm dips.