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NAD's DVD delight
NAD's first DVD player is a audio and visual gem.
By Michael Jones
October 2000
Given
the numerous DVD players available from respected brand names, why would
anyone pay more for the first DVD player from a company with no video
track record? In a word: performance.
The NAD T550 has a better sound and picture than other DVD players below
or around its price. But more on performance later.
The T550 is finished in NAD’s traditional grey. Like virtually all
NAD products, its appearance is utilitarian. The front panel is simple,
with the disc drawer in the centre and a smattering of transport controls
on the right.
The back panel is a little more populated. There’s the normal audio
and video outputs, of course, including an S-Video output which provides
a higher picture quality with S-Video equipped televisions.
Also on the back panel is a six-channel output. The reason for this is
that the NAD has a Dolby Digital decoder built into the player. This means
that if you have a Dolby Digital-ready receiver, you can use a DVD player
like the NAD and have DD sound.
Also on the back is a rarity among DVD players sold in New Zealand: a
Scart socket. Scart is a European standard connection for video and audio,
but has mainly been seen in New Zealand to date on the back of European
televisions such as Loewe and Grundig.
The Scart socket on the back of the NAD allows for a direct RGB output,
which will be useful to people running projectors with RGB inputs. The
US version of the NAD has component video outputs instead of the Scart
socket.
Unlike many DVD players in New Zealand which are multi-zoned, the NAD
comes out of the box set to Zone 4 (New Zealand’s zone as set by
the Hollywood mandarins). This means that the NAD will not play the many
Zone 1 DVDs available in this country.
However, there is a hack that can be accessed via the remote control.
This will change the NAD’s zone to whichever zone is needed (most
NAD dealers will have details of this hack). However it will not make
the T550 multi-zoned. If anyone has a hack to achieve this, please contact
me at editor@audioenz.co.nz
and I will share it with readers.
The only other point against the NAD is that it won’t play CDRs (CDs made with a computer or audio-based CD recorder). Keep this in mind if you have several CDRs to play.
It’s the performance of the NAD that makes all the difference. While
the video performance differences between the typical cheaper DVD players
are noticable, they are not huge in the scheme of things. But the NAD’s
picture was streets ahead!
The T550 was noticeably clearer, sharper and more detailed than other
DVD players. This wasn’t because NAD had tweaked the video frequency
response to make it look sharper - using the test DVD Video Essentials
showed that the performance was real.
The only video deficiency I found was that reds went a little pastel.
The other great aspect of the NAD T550 was its sound quality. Most DVD
players are pretty mediocre playing music CDs - a decent $500 CD player
can run rings around them.
But the NAD was different. It sounded like a good $1000+ CD player.
How did NAD do this? By using accepted audiophile practises. For example,
the T550 uses extensive power supply regulation, separating out the power
supply for the digital, servo and analog stages.
As well, the NAD uses Burr-Brown PCM1600 D/A convertors, instead of the
mediocrity often found in DVD players. The analog output stage is apparently
the same as used in their top Classic Series CD player, which also helps.
So NAD have produced a DVD player with a great picture and sound. I would
give it a top
rating except for the zoning and CDR issues. But if that’s
less important to you, try the NAD.
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