NAD C325 BEE
Integrated Amplifier And C525BEE CD Player
Barry Willis, The Absolute
Sound Feb. 07
New Benchmarks for affordable
audio
TWO YEARS AGO, PART OF
MY PITCH TO TAS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ROBERT HARLEY
AND Senior Writer Chris Martens about joining
the Absolute Multimedia team was my enthusiasm
for affordable high-performance components. "The
difference between ultra-high-end gear and
mass-market stuff is smaller than ever before –
and shrinking," I asserted, to wry smiles. "And
somebody aught to be covering affordable
excellence."
I’ve just come away
from a marathon listening session involving a
$299 CD player and $399 integrated amp, and I’m
more convinced than ever that great sound, real
soul-satisfying sound, can be had on a painfully
tight budget. The gear that provoked this
revelation is the
NAD C325BEE integrated amplifier
and
C525BEE CD player,
new entry-level two-channel components that,
right out of the box, had a compelling synergy
with a pair of DALI IDON 6 loudspeakers.
Launched at the CEDIA
Expo in September, the NAD pieces were heralded
as the latest evidence of the manufacturer’s
commitment to two-channel playback. Also implied
in that announcement was NAD’s commitment to the
huge market of budget-minded music lovers.
Incorporating many technical advancements – the
"BEE" suffix stands for engineer Bjorn Erik
Edvardsen, who has intimately involved in the
design of both products – the two components are
claimed by NAD to establish new benchmarks for
affordable audio.
After extended and
enthusiastic listening, I believe this claim is
not mere marketing hype. Using Nordost SPM
interconnects and speaker cable – I’ve
previously justified this
"not-in-the-real-world" hookup by explaining
that SPM is so transparent that it reveals all
of the components’ contributions to the
soundscape – the NAD/DALI system delivered
stunning detail and layered harmonic textures
that were completely unexpected from equipment
in this price niche.
The Best of
Boubacar Traore [Wrasse] was the first CD I
popped in the player, and what an eye-opener it
proved to be.
The world-weary voice of the Malian bluesman and
his backing chorus overlaid with alto-relievo
plucked strings and drums emerged in the room
like an orchestrated swarm of butterflies.
Perhaps subconsciously
expecting a flat lifeless soundstage and a bit
of cheap hi-fi shrillness, I was completely
unprepared for both the degree of detail and
sheer musicality that the NADs delivered.
Chrissie Hynde’s heartbreaking live cover of Ray
Davies’ "I Go To Sleep" from The Pretenders’
The Isle of View [Warner Bros.] had a
dimensionality that we normally associate with
much more expensive electronics, and seemed as
immediate as it must have been for the audience
that sat in rapt silence through her
performance. Pacing and bass impact were great
too. On Shadowland [Sire], K.D. Lang’s
thumping country tearjerker "I’m Down to My Last
Cigarette" picked me up and carried me along
like a high-rolling big rig on an open stretch
of interstate. Putting the Gershwin classic
"Summertime" though the up-tempo jazz blender
is, I suppose, an experiment worth trying, and
club diva Kitty Margolis makes an admirable
attempt in Heart & Soul/Live in San Francsisco
[Mat-Kat]. Her three-piece band works up a
lather in this extended improve, every drum
whack and every plucked bass string fully
articulated by the NADs and DALIs.
Although rated at only
50Wpc, the C 325BEE is claimed to have dynamic
power of 210Wpc into 2 ohms, meaning it can
deliver enormous bursts of current into very
low-impedance loads without bogging down. This
ability is enhanced by the "PowerDrive"
technology found in all NAD amplifiers which NAD
says, "adds huge reserves of dynamic headroom
without adding cost by ingeniously marching the
amplifier to the speaker load ….adjusting the
power supply parameters of the amplifier to best
cope with the actual musical signal and specific
speaker loading characteristics."
"NAD’s
C 325BEE/C 525BEE combo is one of the best
bargains in audio today."
The amps good sound can
also be attributed to "trickle-down"
improvements derived from NAD Masters Series
products, including a "new DC Servo that
eliminates sound coloring capacitors in the
signal path," and a "patented distortion-canceling
circuit that uses both feedback and feedforward
to reduce distortion and improve amplifier
stability. The optimized circuit layout lowers
internal impedance, improves grounding, and
eliminates subtle magnetic distortions."
In use, the C 325BEE
was very quiet – residual noise was barely
audible with an open input and the volume
control turned fully clockwise. But with
high-sensitivity loudspeakers like the IKON 6s,
there was never any need to push the volume
control beyond the 10 o’clock position. The amp
was also tremendously dynamic, with open,
effortless sonics.
The chassis design is a
classic NAD black box and looks almost identical
to products the company built 30 years ago. A
nice feature is the removable jumpers between
the preamp and power amp sections, providing
expansion options not otherwise possible. In
addition to using the C 325 BEE as a preamp
feeding a separate power amp, you could also use
the pre-out signal to drive a subwoofer, by
replacing the pre-out/main-in jumpers with
Y-adaptors.
The amp comes with an
easy-to-use remote control that also includes
all the transport functions for the CD layer.
Its volume control operates smoothly and in
small increments, allowing precise adjustments
to listening level without abrupt changes. The
remote offers no backlight at this price point,
unfortunately.
"a
simply amazing amount of musicality at a
ridiculously low price"
The C 525 BEE disc
player is good sounding by a tad rough
ergonomically. This isn’t a serious criticism,
but an observation that the right decisions were
made about where to cut costs to bring the
machine to market at under $300. The drawer is
undamped and makes some noise as it slides in
and out, and the blue-and-white backlit display
doesn’t have enough contract to be read across
the room in high ambient light.
But where it counts the
player is very well executed, with improved
optical tracking circuitry and a 20-bit
Burr-Brown DAC chosen for low-level linearity
and resolution of detail. Borrowing much more
upscale designs, the C 525 BEE has separate
power regulators for the digital and analog
sections, for lower contamination of the analog
output by digital noise. The player also
features metal-film resistors and polypropylene
capacitors in key areas for accurate frequency
response, in addition to high-quality Burr-Brown
op-amps in the output section.
Recognizing the
likelihood that the C 525BEE might be used as a
transport feeding an external DAC, NAD engineers
buffered the coaxial output with a transformer
from the converter itself. The digital output’s
75-ohm impedance is, as NAD claims, ideally
matched to digital cables, reducing the
potential for jitter or timing errors. Like the
remote for the amplifier, the CD player’s remote
is simple and easy to use, and also without a
backlight. Unlike its sibling, it doesn’t
operate the amp.
The owner’s manual says
the C 525BEE plays standard CDs plus CD-Rs, and
warns about potential playback glitches using
off-brand recordable blanks. The player handled
every factory-issued CD perfectly, but got a bit
balky with one of my Memorex compilation discs –
one that’s played in every other disc player
without a problem, including a now very
long-in-the-tooth Marantz CC-65SE changer.
NAD’s C 325BEE/C 525BEE
combo is one of the best bargains in audio
today. The pair offers superb detail, tremendous
dynamics, excellent soundstaging, and a simply
amazing amount of musicality at a ridiculously
low price. I found them not only easy to listen
to for many hours at a stretch, but also
downright compelling. You mat too.
TAS
