NAD T533

You sunk my battleship

By Tony Davey

October 2004

NAD T533 DVD player, $699

For a long time NAD have been famous for two reasons: they make great sounding audio products and they have kept essentially the same “battleship grey” look to most of their products for many years now. This was my first real look at a NAD product, and after having it in my home for the last few weeks, I would happily welcome it back.

The NAD T533 DVD player is in a tough market segment. It’s not pricey enough to be high end, but certainly not in the supermarket cheap bracket either. At $699 it is likely to appeal to people who prefer brand recognition and are willing to pay a small premium for it.

Battleship grey

The T533 supports most current media formats including DVD video (including DVD-R), CD (including CD-R/RW) and other PC media formats such as MP3’s (including display of MP3 titles via the video out), JPEG picture discs and Kodak picture CD’s. It also plays DVD-Audio high resolution music discs, but not SACDs.

The back of the DVD player is full of connections, including the analog 5.1 output for DVD-Audio (or for use with a “Dolby Digital ready” amplifier utilising the onboard Dolby Digital decoder), the expected video and audio connections. The T533 also includes a scart connection for outputting a RGB video signal. This feature can make it extremely handy for owners of European TVs, which traditionally favour Scart connectors as opposed to the component inputs of Japanese TV manufacturers.

The T533 styling is very much in line with NAD’s traditional battleship grey, with all buttons located on the front fascia. The T533 is also following the recent trend of smaller sleek designs, measuring just 435mm(w) x 67mm(h) x 243mm(d) and weighing in at a modest 3kg. There is a rationale by some that if it isn’t big and it isn’t heavy, then it can’t be any good. The T533 blows that theory right out the door - this is one small size big performer.

Warm tones

As mentioned earlier, NAD have for a long time been well respected for the musicality of their components, and the T533 is no exception. Although left until close to the end of my testing, I was impressed with the warm tone that the DVD player produced. Many DVD players, particularly those within a similar price bracket (or even the “supermarket specials”) can produce a lifeless, cold and brash sound for CD playback. Not so with the T533.

Music had tremendous dynamics, enough to allow me to leave the subwoofer off and yet remained easy to listen too. Bass was tight and fully extended, and even the highs of Sarah Brightman at high volume didn’t turn nasty. I tested most varieties of music and found no real favourite. This has to be a good thing as it will fit in with anyone’s tastes.

The audio from DVDs was equally impressive as CD playback. Musical scores sounded rich and lush with plenty of dynamic extension, voice tones were clear and even the obligatory whiz, bang, crash of action movies carried plenty of punch.

A video oddity

One small oddity, was that although this unit is progressive scan capable, it is for NTSC only, PAL images are interlaced. Bizarre for a country whose native video format is PAL but other than that, for video performance I found the T533 to be satisfactory. The picture presented all the detail expected from DVD, colours were vibrant and shadow detail was acceptable (even the tent scene in Gladiator). It had a “me too” feel to the picture, nothing inherently wrong, just not “wow”.

As mentioned earlier, the NAD533 is in a tough price bracket. Based solely on its video performance or its DVD audio performance, I would be struggling to recommend this over a player at doublle the cost from many of their competitors. However, throw into the mix the NAD’s superior CD playback performance, and the additional cost suddenly seems not only justifiable, but also a worth while investment.

If you spend any amount of time listening to CD’s through the one system (lets face it, not many can afford the cost or space of two separate entertainment systems) and don’t want to go down the path of a separate CD/DVD player (again cost and/or space constraints) then demo one of these players as a truly viable all in one solution.

For your nearest NAD dealer