Hi there,
I'm new here and not a native english speaking person. So please forgive any mistakes. It's kind of refreshing to discover this forum, because for the first time I have the impression that things are discussed in a different way than anything I've seen before. The review of the NAD M33 starts with unexpected technical details, switches to marketing and even Purify financials and the last pages are full of details on issues discovered by owners.
I decided to registered and to leave a feedback not because I have something interesting to contribute but to share my experiences over the last couple of months and weeks. I'm not an "audiophile", whatever that means btw... but I like music and especially good sounding music. 20 years back I bought B&W 603 with an Onkyo AVR with all the money I had put aside, trusting the magazines that an AVR can produce excellent 2 channel and amazing surround. My Onkyo is even THX ultra II certified, woooowwww... I was always happy with the sound, especially surround was pretty cool.
I stopped listening actively to music because I felt stupid paying for a whole CD where just a single track was amazing to me. Kids...Home.... blabla....I also felt -like many others I guess who can't afford anything more expensive than what they just bought- that spending more money on equipment was certainly "snake oil" and nothing would be really much better and worth the extra price.
Snake oil is the term I heard most for the last weeks and I can't hear it anymore; like all those other terms coming back again, all the time, in all the reviews, chats and youtube videos... Now I have Deezer (not Hifi) and I listen all the time to music on my ****** setup by streaming aptx to a Philips bluetooth receiver connected to my Onkyo. That's the background.
Why I'm here ?! I became friends with a guy owning a 20 years old B&W 802 combined to a huge 20 years old Mark Levinson amp and more recently a Linn Streamer + amp. And that's just 10times better than what I have at home. So I decided to change my AVR and the speakers. I've got 10-12K aside to upgrade my current car, but I decided to put the money into audio instead.
I actually start regretting the decision and this statement also answers the questions from some members here "why would someone spend 5k for a M33". Btw it's 5500 euros in Europe, if I apply FX rate that's 6.600 USD..... and just to make things clear: I didn't buy one and I didn't find new speakers.
I'm writing here because I'm frustrated. After hours and hours, and more hours......I have no idea what to buy and what I can expect for the money. (sorry!, today I've got a somehow clearer idea thanks to you guys). I had to learn everything I missed for 15 years: cable technologies, what's HiRes, amplifier classes, damping factors, decoding speaker specs, DACs, Devialets' 300 patents (exagerated), what's Roon..... room acoustics:OMG!, MSB real 26 bit vs fake 32 bit filters applied to 6bit... I'M LOST !
All that information put together is worthless !!!!!!!! According to all the "experts" nothing is good and everything is good. The same arguments everywhere, the same marketing terms everywhere. All the amps are better than their pricetag and often better than far more expensive amps, but I can read nowhere that an amp is not worth the money...... strange..... Same for the speakers,... same for all type of audio equipment.
I really didn't imagine making my choices would become so hard: there's internet today, reviews, videos, independent sources and a lot of information... nothing comparable to just trusting your dealer and nice printed brochures 20 years back in time.
Many of course say: trust your ears! Come on guys....... When you think you would have managed to center your interest around a few products, you find out that there's no dealer around for a demonstration. 2. You won't be able to waste their time and ask to hear 10 different speakers or amp combinations out of the 2000 possible combinations in the markets. After sorting out all those combinations which are not available for a demo, the remaining 50% are made of bestsellers due to the marketing efforts and recommendations of commission taking experts. Imagine you have -like me- chosen just 2 or 3 amps, lacking more choice because of what I said here before, and than your dealer tells you "Cambridge audio doesn't sound and we don't have Lyngdorf, neither the new Yamahas (that's not audiophile enough)". To be fair: they told me to consider the M33, seems to be a good recommendation... Actually my first idea was to replace the Onkyo with a new AVR... many people say, 2 channel amps are not better, maybe paying a little bit more to compensate for the hardware for multichannel and video capabilities. Than I was told the new 7K Arcam is maybe as good as the 3k Nad M10...maybe... Okay. I forget AVRs for now, I now prefer Stereo at home, the WAF steps in and the 40m2 room is not furnished in a way to have surround behind my sofas.
My first preference went on to buy separates. Cambridge DAC+pre-amp and Monos. I don't need any analogue inputs or phono stage. I won't buy a CD player so rather upgrading my Deezer to TIDAL, Quobuz or whoever delivers CD quality streaming. My understanding is that MQA and HiRes in general is b....shit and marketing and paying licensing fees, ...without the consent of Neil Young
. I performed a test with a doctor, I'm 40 years old and I can hear up to 16 khz.
So I would like to avoid anything with a MQA stamp but that's seems complicated too.
I discovered the present forum because of the Purify Eigentakt, highlighted in red (mentioned before) and I've read all 22 pages here because I felt having no other choice than buying a M33. Even though I still consider buying a used Devialet Expert Pro 220 or a used Mcintosh or the Noname Purify MB from the Slovenian website Apollon that also brought me to this forum. One brand seemed to offer more quality for the money, generally speaking (not in comparison) Advanced Paris. Big amp, heavy, McIntosh styled VU meters 3500 euros etc but even though I can't judge any specs I discovered a BurrBrown 24bits /192khz chip...... that I have in my 15 years old Onkyo TX SR805.... WTF ?!
Unfortunately I still don't understand 90% of all the nice graphs from the reviewer and I have to trust the experts here when they say "it's not bad, but could be better..... a little to expensive for the performance...." It's the first time in 6 months ! that someone makes a non-hocuspokus technical performance analysis and shares a honest opinion. THANK YOU ! IT HELPS ME, even without understanding the technical stuff.
For those who made all the efforts to read along, SORRY ! I just wanted to get rid of my frustrations. I'm the type of guy who will probably spend too much money for a semi-AVR NAD M33 with several inputs that I don't need, without knowing which speaker I will have but with a small percentage of certainty that the NAD might be what I'm looking for and there is enough consensus that it sounds ...great enough. It avoids further headache on how much I should spend on cables interconnecting separates, it looks great, even though I prefer MBs like the Cambridge or Mcintosh or Devialet but all those solutions are even more expensive.
Design matters (to me), otherwise I would simply try to find my friend's old 802 with an old Mark Levinson and putting a Bluesound on top.
I feel better now !