NAD C542 - Lovely Sound - No difference, however, than PS3

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I purchased a NAD C542 recently and I've listened to 20-30 hours of music. I'm sure that I've gone over the burn-in period. I'm using the analog output from the cdp with Acoustic Research cables. The music from the NAD C542 is absolutely lovely. The only issue and it's a huge one is that it's identical to the music that plays from my PS3 over HDMI. I own a couple of duplicate CDs that allow me to do A/B comparisons and I can't honestly discern ANY difference between the NAD and the PS3 - if there's a difference it would not be splitting hairs but more like splitting quantums and electrons.

What's even more surprising, is that playing compressed music (AAC 320kbps) from the PS3 sounds equally good as the cd playback from the NAD C542 (there is maybe a tiny, tiny difference). I've listened to the same songs dozens upon dozens of times trying to find something that would make me feel good about the NAD C542 and justify its cost (not to mention rack space and extra remote) but I've given up.

The receiver that I'm using is a Marantz SR8001 and the speakers are a pair of B&W 601 S3. By the way, CD playback from the X360 does sound consistently worse than both the PS3 and NAD C542 so the X360 is not as good a transport as the PS3.

I simply cannot accept that a dedicated CD player with high-end DACs can sound the same as a gaming console (granted, a remarkable console) . I've read so many posts/reviews of how CD players sound great and I was really looking forward to this upgrade.

Should I console myself that the NAD C542 at least sounds as good as the PS3 and not worse? Did they forget to add the Burr-Brown Sigma Delta Omega DACs to my player? Is this a matter of cables?

Thank you for reading this long post.

 

[Ajani]

TheGreekSamurai:
Hi,

I purchased a NAD C542 recently and I've listened to 20-30 hours of music. I'm sure that I've gone over the burn-in period. I'm using the analog output from the cdp with Acoustic Research cables. The music from the NAD C542 is absolutely lovely. The only issue and it's a huge one is that it's identical to the music that plays from my PS3 over HDMI. I own a couple of duplicate CDs that allow me to do A/B comparisons and I can't honestly discern ANY difference between the NAD and the PS3 - if there's a difference it would not be splitting hairs but more like splitting quantums and electrons.

What's even more surprising, is that playing compressed music (AAC 320kbps) from the PS3 sounds equally good as the cd playback from the NAD C542 (there is maybe a tiny, tiny difference). I've listened to the same songs dozens upon dozens of times trying to find something that would make me feel good about the NAD C542 and justify its cost (not to mention rack space and extra remote) but I've given up.

The receiver that I'm using is a Marantz SR8001 and the speakers are a pair of B&W 601 S3. By the way, CD playback from the X360 does sound consistently worse than both the PS3 and NAD C542 so the X360 is not as good a transport as the PS3.

I simply cannot accept that a dedicated CD player with high-end DACs can sound the same as a gaming console (granted, a remarkable console) . I've read so many posts/reviews of how CD players sound great and I was really looking forward to this upgrade.

Should I console myself that the NAD C542 at least sounds as good as the PS3 and not worse? Did they forget to add the Burr-Brown Sigma Delta Omega DACs to my player? Is this a matter of cables?

Thank you for reading this long post.

I had a very similar problem a few years ago with a NAD C521bee CD Player and a Mac Mini (playing my AAC 320 and lossless files)... My setup at the time consisted of the of the NAD, MAC, Rotel RC-1070 Pre and RB-1080 Power & Mission V63 Floorstanders...

I could hardly tell the difference between the NAD and the ripped files on the Mac... eventually I changed the NAD to a Marantz CD5001 and heard an improvement, but not enough to justify buying a CD player when I already had the Mac...

Since then, my attitude on entry level CD players has been to pretty much avoid them if you already have a source (that doesn't sound like rubbish i.e some cheapo DVD players)...

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply. That confirms my findings. I've read WHF religiously and I was led to believe that a CD player would be a significant upgrade to my system. That doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, I'm going to dig out my 10 year-old DVD player and see how music sounds from that one. It had better sound worse than the NAD C542. Otherwise, I and many others have been seriously misled.

 

[Anonymous]

TheGreekSamurai:

I simply cannot accept that a dedicated CD player with high-end DACs can sound the same as a gaming console (granted, a remarkable console).

I don't think that C542 has high-end DAC in the practice. It is rather a low budget player that can only compete with game consoles. It is not a C541. 🙂

 

[Anonymous]

I personally don't consider the C542 as low budget - it's the 2nd most expensive CD player in NAD's product line and many people have paid 350 pounds/500 dollars for it - that's as much as a game console and it offers a fraction of the functionality. The C542 is a dedicated CD player with 2 DACs and it should run circles around the PS3 and most DVD players at the same price range.

I've heard of the C541 (was there an "i" also there?). Is that better?

 

[Dave_]

personally i dont think your gonna get the best outta any cdp feeding it through an a/v receiver,

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting point.

But keep in mind that Marantz makes good stereo receivers and this is one of their top-of-the-line AV receivers. In fact, I'm suspecting that since I'm using the PS3 solely as a transport that the SR8001 DACs are responsible for making the compressed music sound as good as cd quality music from the NAD C542 which would speak volumes about the capabilities of the AV receiver. This might not be the NAD C542's fault so much as that it is outclassed by the SR8001.

 

[nads]

so you are comparing the NAD CD with the PS3 transport with the Marantz DAC?

At least do like for like. does the PS3 have analogue outs ? connect them and compare. or the same digi outs. you are currently testing apples and oranges not apples with apples.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the PS3 has analogue but why would I use those when it supports HDMI which carries both sound and picture? What I haven't tried is using the NAD C542 as a transport like the PS3 and letting the Marantz SR 8001 perform the conversion. Who knows the NAD C542 may redeem itself as a transport...

 

[Anonymous]

For the sake of testing only you can use the stereo analog outs of PS3
and connect it to AVR analog inputs, the same way you connect the
analog out of your nad C542. By that, you're testing them as a CD
Player and not as a digital transport only. This way, the AVRs DAC will
not have influence to the sound of PS3. AVR will serve as an amp only to your speakers, thus a fair match

 

[Anonymous]

My roksan kandy eats my ps3 as a cd player BUT the ps3 isnt that bad at spinning CD's for a games consol, i would hazard a guess that its in the same ball park as a budget denon or sony CDP's

 

[Gerrardasnails]

khian:For the sake of testing only you can use the stereo analog outs of PS3
and connect it to AVR analog inputs, the same way you connect the
analog out of your nad C542. By that, you're testing them as a CD
Player and not as a digital transport only. This way, the AVRs DAC will
not have influence to the sound of PS3. AVR will serve as an amp only to your speakers, thus a fair match

Khian is right. You are not testing a cd player against a PS3 here. You are testing a cd player's capability as transport to a PS3's capabiilty as transport.

 

[Anonymous]

Either the PS3 + Marantz DAC is an excellent player on his own, and similar sounding to the NAD (maybe the Marantz receiver uses BB DAC chips, which basically give that dark timbre to the NAD), or the rest of your setup is not transparent enough to let you hear the differences. Those AR cables are low end, a multichannel receiver used as a stereo amp is not the best thing, and the 600 series is not very revealing (I've owned the 602s). Try both players with a good stereo amp, good interconects, and more revealing speakers, such as Epos M series, PMC, etc. and maybe you will hear differences. Or maybe the transport + DAC combo that you have is really good! Who knows? But I can tell you that the 542 is an excellent player for the money.

I don't understand why someone said that the 542 is not a 541... was he meaning that the 541 was better? I owned the 541i, and the 542 is just as good, if not better.

 

[Anonymous]

Well after reading this I felt like comparing my Sony XB930 to my my PS2 thank god the PS2 sounds horrible in comparison when playing music lol.

 

[Tony_R]

TheGreekSamurai:
The only issue and it's a huge one is that it's identical to the music that plays from my PS3 over HDMI. I own a couple of duplicate CDs that allow me to do A/B comparisons and I can't honestly discern ANY difference between the NAD and the PS3...

....What's even more surprising, is that playing compressed music (AAC 320kbps) from the PS3 sounds equally good as the cd playback from the NAD C542 (there is maybe a tiny, tiny difference).

The receiver that I'm using is a Marantz SR8001 and the speakers are a pair of B&W 601 S3. By the way, CD playback from the X360 does sound consistently worse than both the PS3 and NAD C542 so the X360 is not as good a transport as the PS3.

......I simply cannot accept that a dedicated CD player with high-end DACs can sound the same as a gaming console (granted, a remarkable console) .

Should I console myself that the NAD C542 at least sounds as good as the PS3 and not worse?

Is the Xbox 360 also connected via HDMI? Or is that connecting via some other method? I note your Marantz has 4 HDMI inputs?

As a point of comparison, you could try connecting the NAD via the digital output (coax or optical).

I think this may eliminate any differences you have been hearing, as it sounds to me like you have been comparing the DAC in the Marantz to the DAC in the NAD rather than comparing the DAC in the PS/3 to the DAC in the NAD (sorry does that make sense?!).

My own observations with compressed music is that (in my own system anyway) I can't tell the difference between the original CD and music ripped above 192 k.....

Perhaps I just have cloth ears...

(or a lousy system..!)

In some cases, I could almost swear that some of my ripped music sounds better than the original - but this could be down to no jitter etc. For instance, music played through my Roku sound bridge / MF X-ACT DAC combo often sounds nearly as good as my Marantz CD-17....

I say just sit back and enjoy the music - that is after all what we bought hifi for!!!

Tony.

 

[Anonymous]

That's funny, I was getting my old walkman CD player out to see how the NAD C542 compares to it🙂 The thing was built to not skip while jogging... It might turn out to be reference-grade and I can sell it on ebay for 30k.

I wasn't a big fan of the PS3 for music (it's great with movies) until my shocking discovery. I would seriously recommend to anyone to give the PS3 a try and you may just find that your AACs or mp3s do sound better over a digital connection especially if your receiver can produce a good soundstage. I've been reading a little bit about the PS3 on other audiophile forums and apparently it's excellent as a transport especially with music off the hard drive. If it supported lossless (it does through streaming FLAC at least according to other folks), then it would be a top-of-the-line transport since you get jukebox capabilities (sorting, song and album names,etc), a nice visualizer, advanced bitmapping, 176.4khz streaming. You can even buy more music while you're listening to it (hint to NAD add online store to CD players). I guess the point here is that you have a decent AV receiver and a PS3, then CD players are really overkill. If you're also willing to stream lossless compressed music, then it might actually be superior to all but the very top CD players. You could probably get a free TV or another pair speakers while sacrificing little to nothing (or even gaining with lossless).

I'm sure many audiophiles/purists will think I'm insane and they may be right. Unless dealers offer a PS3s next to the Plinius, Krells and Leemas, there's no way for anyone to test this claim.

 

[Anonymous]

Tony,

The Xbox360 is connected via optical - it's one of the older ones. I can definitely tell a difference between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 or NAD.

You're right, I am comparing The NAD's DAC to the Marantz's DAC when using analogue for the CDP and digital for the PS3. I just did a test by connecting a digital Coax to the NAD. The Marantz offers Analog/Digital button that allows me to switch between the connections and bass is a little tighter with the digital. The PS3 AAC 320kbps sounds equally good.

It's interesting that you also cannot tell much difference between compressed music especially since you have a great stereo receiver and better speakers than the BW601s.

 

[Anonymous]

Can a PS3 be connected to an old integrated vacuum tube amplifier with RCA inputs? How do I go about doing this? Thanks!