Still looking for the wifi/hdmi on my vinyl turntable, wanna help?
I think you can only judge the price once people get their hands on units and test the quality. You can spend £500 on a DAC or headphone amp.
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I think it's time I refreshed my NAD C325Bee, NAD D 3020?
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Still looking for the wifi/hdmi on my vinyl turntable, wanna help?
I think you can only judge the price once people get their hands on units and test the quality. You can spend £500 on a DAC or headphone amp.
The bits you have bolded are standard for all NAD gear. Have you ever owned one? It could be argued they didn't even need to mention those but these new products are aimed at a new market and it makes sense to do so. What you've said still doesn't make sense and you've got a skewed perception of this whole thing sadly.
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Vinyl in HiFi are targeted these days at purist, as such, arguably they wouldn't be looking at product like these (digital), or a receiver (multi channel).
Sure you can get £300 DAC and what not, this is a £300-400 amp, whilst it is true that one should wait until test units are out in the real world before judging on its performance but generally speaking, one can argue a 100% analogue amp in this price range will sound nicer. As like you said before, the money would be spent on quality parts, not spent on things like Bluetooth and USB.
It is also perfectly fine you want the digital side of things, in which I would want the most commonly used digital connections out there - Wifi/HDMI.
The one NAD model has Wifi are $1000/£700 there about, you are now looking at some serious money for an amp here, and some serious competition in terms of both stereo amplifiers and/or receivers out there today, more bargain if you go last year's model, even those will have more inputs than this $1000 NAD. And at this price point, the receiver will sound quite decent at music too.
The only attraction here appears to be its size, (hence the Bose reference). Make a little more space then it seems you can have a lot more for your money.
mrk, your current amplifier isn't this size, you have lived with it for years being that size. Do you need the new amp being this compact size?
Sure you can get £300 DAC and what not, this is a £300-400 amp, whilst it is true that one should wait until test units are out in the real world before judging on its performance but generally speaking, one can argue a 100% analogue amp in this price range will sound nicer. As like you said before, the money would be spent on quality parts, not spent on things like Bluetooth and USB.
It is also perfectly fine you want the digital side of things, in which I would want the most commonly used digital connections out there - Wifi/HDMI.
The one NAD model has Wifi are $1000/£700 there about, you are now looking at some serious money for an amp here, and some serious competition in terms of both stereo amplifiers and/or receivers out there today, more bargain if you go last year's model, even those will have more inputs than this $1000 NAD. And at this price point, the receiver will sound quite decent at music too.
The only attraction here appears to be its size, (hence the Bose reference). Make a little more space then it seems you can have a lot more for your money.
mrk, your current amplifier isn't this size, you have lived with it for years being that size. Do you need the new amp being this compact size?
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Skewed? The facts and my main problem with this product (3020) are :-
Lack of wifi
Lack of HDMI
That makes perfect sense. Tell me I am wrong.
Do I really want to spend $500 more for the privilege of wifi connectivity?
The lack of future proofing of this product is clear to me.
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Adding current technology items to an amplifier prevents it from being future proof! It won't be long until the current instantiation of HDMI is history and wifi standards move on themselves. Making HIfi components modular (as in this NAD) is what provides future proofing (to a certain extent). I'm still happily running a pre/power amp combo from the nineties; I can plug in my streaming components (and legacy hardware) safe in the knowledge that the amp will still be current in another twenty years time.
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That paragraph is one giant oxymoron.
Adding current technology prevents it being future proof? - That NAD has USB (is it even USB 3?), it has optical (when HDMI came out AFTER it).
If you are going to put in technology into it, throw it all in, not dipping your toes and then charge you $500 for something basic as wifi.
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The point is not USB 3.0 specifically.
The point was he said putting in current technology is pointless as all technology will be outdated. True, that is perfectly fine. However, the NAD is not an analogue amp, it has digital, and is sold as having digital features, thus it has has current technology and the current technology these days is USB 3.0. Having faster bandwidth cannot be a negative now is it?
Otherwise why not put in USB 1.0?
USB1 is inefficient, tech has shifted and USB2 is what's available. Why should it have USB3? No audio amp needs USB3 because no audio requires that bandwidth.
The size adds convenience and would improve several aspects of my PC audio setup.
1: Heat. My C325Bee generates a lot of heat, as you'd expect from a good quality integrated amp. It generates 45 degrees at the vents.
2: Size. It's pretty huge. It's bigger than a toploader VCR! It's also heavy.
3: It is a pure analogue amplifier, I can't connect a console via optical in or digital coax. This is a smaller issue as I probably won't get a next gen console for a while anyway.
4: No bluetooth. I could use my portable bluetooth A2DP receiver and plug it into the line in but this defeats the things I'm trying to improve in points 1 and 2.
All in the D3020 appears to offer everything my C325Bee does but with updated modern connectivity that the majority of people will be looking for (USB/optical/bluetooth) in a smaller package with a remote that doesn't need to be facing it to use.
I'll try get one in and see what I make of it.
The size adds convenience and would improve several aspects of my PC audio setup.
1: Heat. My C325Bee generates a lot of heat, as you'd expect from a good quality integrated amp. It generates 45 degrees at the vents.
2: Size. It's pretty huge. It's bigger than a toploader VCR! It's also heavy.
3: It is a pure analogue amplifier, I can't connect a console via optical in or digital coax. This is a smaller issue as I probably won't get a next gen console for a while anyway.
4: No bluetooth. I could use my portable bluetooth A2DP receiver and plug it into the line in but this defeats the things I'm trying to improve in points 1 and 2.
All in the D3020 appears to offer everything my C325Bee does but with updated modern connectivity that the majority of people will be looking for (USB/optical/bluetooth) in a smaller package with a remote that doesn't need to be facing it to use.
I'll try get one in and see what I make of it.
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http://gaming.nauglefest.net/dietmartyr/audio-rates.html
1 channel (mono) of [email protected]=86.132KB per second (5.046MB per minute)
1 channel (mono) of 24-bit@48Khz=140.625KB per second (8.239MB per minute)
1 channel (mono) of 24-bit@96Khz=281.25KB per second (16.479MB per minute)
1 channel (mono) of 24-bit@192Khz=562.50KB per second (32.958MB per minute)
2 channels (stereo) of [email protected]=172.264KB per second (10.093MB per minute)
2 channels (stereo) of 24-bit@48Khz=281.25KB per second (16.479MB per minute)
2 channels (stereo) of 24-bit@96Khz=562.50KB per second (32.958MB per minute)
2 channels (stereo) of 24-bit@192Khz=1.098MB per second (65.88MB per minute)
4 channels (quadraphonic) of [email protected]=344.528KB per second (20.187MB per minute)
4 channels (quadraphonic) of 24-bit@48Khz=562.50KB per second (32.958MB per minute)
4 channels (quadraphonic) of 24-bit@96Khz=1.098MB per second (67.50MB per minute)
4 channels (quadraphonic) of 24-bit@192Khz=2.197MB per second (131.835MB per minute)
USB 2.0 is the most common and most compatible, why bother adding complications when USB 2.0 is more than enough. Even the 5D MKIII still has USB 2.0, why don't you shout at Canon for that?
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Seems like a good idea if you want a compact desktop amp with built-in DAC and enough in the way of quality components to drive a decent set of speakers!
I have an old Marantz AV receiver on my desk driving my Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers, something like this would be the ideal candidate for a replacement..
OTOH I love my Nad C352 and it drives my Kef Reference speakers via a Meridian power amp rather wonderfully.. Nad FTW
P.s. USB2 supports up to 480mbits/sec, that's enough for full HD BluRay quality video with 6 channels of uncompressed LPCM audio never mind stereo 24/48(or 96 or 192) audio
P.p.s I have no idea what Raymond is on about as usual
I have an old Marantz AV receiver on my desk driving my Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers, something like this would be the ideal candidate for a replacement..
OTOH I love my Nad C352 and it drives my Kef Reference speakers via a Meridian power amp rather wonderfully.. Nad FTW
P.s. USB2 supports up to 480mbits/sec, that's enough for full HD BluRay quality video with 6 channels of uncompressed LPCM audio never mind stereo 24/48(or 96 or 192) audio
P.p.s I have no idea what Raymond is on about as usual
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I do understand the size/heat/weight...I have/had a Marantz KI amp and now a Pioneer receiver, but once it's there the weight doesn't really matter much.
I do get what you are saying though and thy are all reasonable, if you want the size then there really isn't much that size, apart from Cyrus?
If it sounds good after a demo, and fit your needs then go for it.
With all tech though, I always try to get a little bit more than what I need, something you can grow into (like I have an amp with 6 HDMI ports when at that point I only needed 2), however if you think you will never need those extra connections then that's perfectly fine. I would think long and hard about this personally. For example, if you are going to buy a next gen console to go into this, you are splitting the audio and visual, optical to amp, HDMI to TV.
With a receiver you throw everything into the amp, 1 single cable out of the amp to the TV.
p.s. My Pioneer don't need a remote to be pointed at to be used, either. There are apps on the phone/tablet that I can control anywhere in the house, via wifi.
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5Dmkiii came out like over 12 months ago? was announced like 15 months ago with spec that was finalised probably 18 months ago?
This is coming out now?
His point was also all tech will go out of date, you are just making my point for sticking with USB 2.0 and not moving forward !
and you haven't told me why it is a bad thing to have USB 3.0 over USB 2.0? My computer that i bought 7 months ago has it....
You don't need it so why increase development time sourcing a new chip that will need new drivers and further testing when you have one that is sufficient and will exceed the requirement tenfold already? It's as pointless as this argument.
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You can get a USB 3.0 hub for like £10...how expensive can this chip be?! and USB is a standard, all the R&D is done already. If they were testing it to use USB 2.0 then why not spent that time to use USB 3.0 instead?
But just so our current needs don't need it then we will never need it? (you can see my thinking on future proofing right? right from the beginning of this thread....this is the same train of thought but it appears you and mrk are happy on what it can do now and not worried about tomorrow.)
So Gregorius is wrong when he said all technology will go out of date?
p.s. I do think it sucks that it is USB 2.0 on cameras, I have NEVER EVER used it (that's why i never complaint about it), I have had a 30D, two 5D mkii and 2 mk3 and nevever used the USB port on anyone of them. I used to use a Firewire reader before and USB 3.0 now. USB 2.0 is painful slow.
Because unless someone invents super robotic hearing implants, humans won't be able to appreciate anything better than 24-bit@192Khz. You will NEVER see that format become common because it's pointless, therefore in this instance USB 2.0 is more than capable.
In this case the DAC in this unit is 96khz so again, no point.
In this case the DAC in this unit is 96khz so again, no point.
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