Philips AVR9900 (NAD T747) terrible dissapointment. Help me find a decent upgrade.

[admin_exported]

I've been running a Denon AVR3802 for about two years now and finally decided to upgrade. I spotted a nice deal and bought a new Philips AVR9900 brand new in box.

Setting up the receiver was terrible, probably one of the worst menus I have seen even though it was supposed to be simple. Far from it..

When I had everything up and running I decided to spin a few discs.

I've never been more dissapointed, the sound is downright boring and lack dynamics. I don't know if the Denon I had is truly that good or the Philips such a bad match for my speakers but gosh this is underwhelming.

Keane Live: the expansive sound, reverberating vocals in the O2 Arena are gone
The Dark Night: opening sequence, glass shattering not as ear shattering as before.
Pixies - Surfer Rosa - Where is my mind: Vocals don't extend nearly as wide and deep

I could go on and on, fact of the matter is that even though I traded up to a receiver which is 8 years younger and does HDMI features etc, I'm just downright dissapointed by the outcome.

Do you have any suggestions as to what might be a decent upgrade? Would love to hear from you guys!

 

[Anonymous]

what was so wrong with the denon that you decided to upgrade? it sounds like you were happy with the sound of the denon, so i would start with auditioning one of their current models in your price range

 

[Anonymous]

Been bitten by the upgrade bug, I wanted more ease of use (i.e. route everything through the AVR via HMDI) and obviously a better sound. Been watching quite some movies lately and finally wanted to make the most of all the DTS-HD en Dolby TrueHD tracks on my Blu-Ray's.

 

[Anonymous]

If connected through HDMI, indeed the sound quality is rather 'flat' when playing straight CD's.

When connecting the multi-player (Oppo) to the analog input, the sound is OK.