Rotel vs. NAD?

[steelgtr]

Hi Guys,

Did anyone consider NAD when purchasing the Rotel? They both get high reviews as being very musical. The NAD is considerately less money. Are they in the same league?

Also, what country is Rotel made in?

thx

bob

[ZX 6R]

Rotel gear is made in China. Saving on the labour component allows them to put in the premium parts they do, as well as selling at prices well below most of their real competition performance wise. Of note is the fact that products are actually built in a ROTEL factory by ROTEL. Alot of other brands out there have the potential of being built in a few places depending on batch since it's all subcontracted out. Last year, Inkel, a Korean company built 25% of all AV receivers in the world.

[gnagflow]

Hi,

I bought the NAD T752 before I got my Rotel RSX-1055. The NAD was very musical, too. However, I had some SERIOUS problems with the unit:
1.) There was substantial noise in the analog inputs. Much more than the Rotel.
2.) When using DSP modes, there was a 'holographic' sound effect, even when using digital inputs. This was VERY audible!
3.) I had to 'reboot' the unit once in a while, because it just froze up on me.
4.) Digital-in signals took very long to be detected. I had even drop-outs between tracks when playing subsequent tracks of a CD.
5.) It picked up the 15kHz flyback signal from my TV (which was sitting on top of the NAD in my rack) and amplified it into all speakers. You can imagine that having a steady 15KHz signal in your surrounds is not very pleasant.

I wrote a small paper about these issues (for NAD). If anybody is interested, let me know.

Some people complained about the loud fan, however, I never had this problem (proabably I just didn't hear it, because my ears were deafened by the 15kHz tone ).

I checked with my dealer and his demo unit had the same issues. I also got email from other T752 users that experienced the same problems. I heard that NAD is planning to release a new version of the T752, but I don't know if they addressed the problems.
I sent a letter to NAD to make them aware of the problems but never got a response. From what I read in this forum, Rotel seems to be more responsive. I returned mine for a full refund and got a Rotel. I would definitively NOT recommend the purchase of a NAD T752!

The only thing I miss about the NAD is its excellent remote. The Rotel remote is not nearly as good...

Hope this info helps.

Wolfgang

[greggz]

I haven't looked at NAD equipment in 10+ years, but at the time it was well respected. I dont know if the NAD company today is who it was then. I believe one of the principle members of NAD left the company to jointly found Sherbourn with another principle member of McIntosh.




Gregg

[pangloss]

well i just got a rsx-1055 to a/b with a nad t752. i'm playing through nht sb-3s.

so far, they're pretty comparable playing stereo music. i haven't listened enough to come to any real judgement on musicality--there are differences, but i'm having a hard time concretely describing what those differences are, and if even one is better than the other. so far (it's only been an hour) i wouldn't say the rotel sounds $400 better than the nad

however, the rotel has more bells and whistles--e.g. zones, rs-232, slightly better binding posts (you can use spades.... the rotel also doesn't have any fan noise (no fans).
there doesn't seem to be any delay locking onto the audio signal from a digital source. (however both the fan noise and delay are reportedly addressed in a firmware update from nad).
the nad doesn't have the bass management issue that the rotel (reportedly) does.
the nad lets you use feet to measure speaker delay, instead of milliseconds.
the rotel uses some arbitrary numbering scale for volume levels--just a nitpick though.

again, pretty comparable so far.

[Juan Cortez]

Hello pangloss

I was talking with a couple of new NAD t752 owners and they said that NAD has completely removed the fan and fix the problems in the latest version of the receiver. I just want to suggest that if you want try out the t762 since it is the same price as the Rotel and take it from there. There are many Rotel rsx-1055 owners here and they love the Rotel. I have tried the Rotel and was blown away by the prefromance compared to other brands(did not audition NAD). Do not knock out Rotel yet. If you can see if you dealer would let you take the Rotel home for a weekend and do some serious testing.

Juan Cortez

[pangloss]

interesting.

how new is new? i hadn't heard anything about *removing* the fans (t762 has/had 2).

i received my t752 in mid april. anyway, i'm returning it today (30 day return). and i have to return the 1055 today (one night eval).

i'm still undecided between the two receivers. i'm going to take a gander at the t762 since it is in the same price range as the rsx-1055. except for price, the 1055 is at the top of my list now, if only because it sounds about as good as (but i still can't quantify how it's different) the nad, but doesn't have the fan noise and signal locking issues. on the other hand, if firmware fixes deal with the nad issues, then i think the nad may win out on price.

and just fyi, i auditioned a marantz 7300ose against the t752--i liked the nad better (comparing 2-channel classical and pop music). i listened to an arcam avr200 as well, but i wasn't able to bring it home to audition, so i can't really pass judgement on it (and it's definitely the most feature-sparse receiver i've looked at but the dealer, who also is a rotel dealer, said the arcam beats the pants off the rotel for musicality).

[steelgtr]

well i just got a rsx-1055 to a/b with a nad t752. i'm playing through nht sb-3s.

so far, they're pretty comparable playing stereo music. i haven't listened enough to come to any real judgement on musicality--there are differences, but i'm having a hard time concretely describing what those differences are, and if even one is better than the other. so far (it's only been an hour) i wouldn't say the rotel sounds $400 better than the nad

however, the rotel has more bells and whistles--e.g. zones, rs-232, slightly better binding posts (you can use spades.... the rotel also doesn't have any fan noise (no fans).
there doesn't seem to be any delay locking onto the audio signal from a digital source. (however both the fan noise and delay are reportedly addressed in a firmware update from nad).
the nad doesn't have the bass management issue that the rotel (reportedly) does.
the nad lets you use feet to measure speaker delay, instead of milliseconds.
the rotel uses some arbitrary numbering scale for volume levels--just a nitpick though.

again, pretty comparable so far.

pan,

How about apparent power between the 2? I heard the 752 yesterday through some Vandersteen $800/pair speakers. I had to crank the 752 to 0db or greater to get it to open up This was in a tall, open showroom if that matters. Sound was very nice and dead quiet with no source. Also, after a 15 min. audition, I never did hear the fan come on

bob

[pangloss]

bob,
in the first place, my nht's are relatively inefficient speakers, so i have to crank a little more to match, for instance, the output on my psb alphas.
when i measured the t752 and the rsx-1055 with an spl meter (using a test sound from my pc over an optical connector) 0db on the t752 roughly corresponded to 70 on the rotel.

i also found the apparent power output between the two fairly comparable. i never cranked both to the max however to compare: my neighbors would have killed me

well i'm receiverless now--i returned both and am awaiting some input from the nad dealer to see if fan and audio delay issues have been addressed in more recent shipments before i make a final decision between the two.

[pangloss]

just realized 2 other cons for the rotel, one of which i just don't get:
- no headphone jack
- no front a/v inputs

what's the deal w/ no headphone input? (i have to say this "feature" of the forum's search that doesn't let you see threads in context is really obnoxious--i can tell someone's asked but i can't find the fill discussion) i've never seen a receiver w/out a headphone jack.

and the front a/v's are nice for hooking up the camcorder and such. i can live w/out this though. but no headphones! do 1055 owners never use headphones? =)

[JKohn]

Maybe they figure if you're really serious about headphone listening you'll have a headphone amp? Not trying to be facetious, that's just the only reason I can really think of for them leaving it off, I doubt it would cost much to implement.




Jeff Kohn

http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn

[ZX 6R]

Most headphone inputs are hooked up to cheap and nasty PWM amplifiers instead of the actual amplification stage of the reciever(assuming it also does not have cheap digital amplification). Obviously doing it right costs alot more so I'd guess they'd rather just leave it out rather than doing a lame implimentation.......Of course they also could have just forgotten, or thought a big hole in the front would wreck their cool styling

[soopa]

well i can say this...... the rotel stuff LOOKS cooler then the NAD stuff 8)

[sndtowne]

I was an NAD dealer many years back and discontinued the line because of too many defectives and customer complaints. We also found "engineering on the fly," that is, circuit board traces cut and (corrective) parts soldered in. Because of this, some of their wiring diagrams did not match the actual unit's boards. I believe Onkyo bought out NAD a few years ago so things may have changed.




Bruce

[pangloss]

actually, lenbrook (the same company that owns psb) owns nad. i think they acquired nad in late 1999.

i heard the same (about too many repair problems) from a rotel dealer in san francisco this weekend. but i have to take it with a grain of salt, since he *is* trying to sell me a rotel

on the other hand, i had a dealer for both rotel and arcam actually explicitly dissuade me from purchasing rotel because he had had so many rotel repair/shop orders. that was very surprising coming from a rotel dealer. the other rotel dealer said they hadn't had such problems.

i'll admit the rotels look better =) although i can't decide between silver and black. especially since nothing else i own is silver (yet).

and i didn't even *know* there were separate headphone amps. my god. i just saw the headroom amps. people will pay $3000.00 for an amp for their *headphones*?! criminey.

[Energeezer]

Guys
If you are considering NAD consider this.
I had a 752 before my Rotel 1055 and had the following problem
It would not recognize a DD signal from a Panasonic RP62 DVD player. The retailer and I did extensive testing and found that it DID recognize DD from Marantz and NAD DVD players but not my Panasonic. Of course the NAD dealer tried his best to convince me that my player or cabling was at fault so I proved it to him by hooking the Panny up to a Marantz which decoded the dd just fine. All this led to a falling out between me and the dealer for this and other reasons.
Three weeks later they told me the problem had been fixed with an eprom change but by then I had already decieded I did not want the unit. It also had some other minor QC problems (cosmetic, screws missing and the like) This all added up to turn me away from NAD.
Then I found the Rotel which IMO is a better unit anyway and well worth the extra cash.
BTW. I forget. What was the warrentee on NAD?




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