This is a review and detailed measurements of the OSD Nero Stream-XD analog and digital streaming (wifi and Bluetooth) amplifier. It was kindly sent to me by a member for testing. It costs US $230 from Amazon including Prime shipping.
There is a bit of heft to this box considering its budget category:
There is a rotary control for volume and input selection. Naturally with no display, you don't know the volume level. Various inputs are provided although USB is for storage device, not as a DAC:
I focused my testing on analog and Toslink inputs.
Like the inclusion of power supply in the unit which likely is the reason for some of its weight. In use, it got warm to touch but nothing concerning.
OSD Nero Stream-XD Measurements
Let's start with using the analog input and see how it does:
Well, this is not good. There is strange/high noise floor plus plenty of distortion. Perhaps it digitizes the analog input? Let's test Toslink then:
Same bad results.
It ranks way at the bottom of our rankings:
Can the news get worse? Yes, it can:
There is a subwoofer output so maybe this is someone's idea of high pass filter! I looked in the manual and there are no tone controls that could be responsible for this.
Let me just post the rest of the graphs and not waste words on a failing design:
Conclusions
This is a prime example of what we in the industry call "phoned in design." You call up a shop in China, given them your wish list and out comes an amp. You do no testing yourself and put no requirements as far as performance on the shop that is "designing" it. Result is all the checklist items marketing wants with performance not even on the back of the priority list.
Does it sound better than a sound bar when paired with a couple of speakers? Should that frequency response not screw things up too bad, maybe. For me? I pass and get an AVR instead.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
There is a bit of heft to this box considering its budget category:
There is a rotary control for volume and input selection. Naturally with no display, you don't know the volume level. Various inputs are provided although USB is for storage device, not as a DAC:
I focused my testing on analog and Toslink inputs.
Like the inclusion of power supply in the unit which likely is the reason for some of its weight. In use, it got warm to touch but nothing concerning.
OSD Nero Stream-XD Measurements
Let's start with using the analog input and see how it does:
Well, this is not good. There is strange/high noise floor plus plenty of distortion. Perhaps it digitizes the analog input? Let's test Toslink then:
Same bad results.
It ranks way at the bottom of our rankings:Can the news get worse? Yes, it can:
There is a subwoofer output so maybe this is someone's idea of high pass filter! I looked in the manual and there are no tone controls that could be responsible for this.
Let me just post the rest of the graphs and not waste words on a failing design:
Conclusions
This is a prime example of what we in the industry call "phoned in design." You call up a shop in China, given them your wish list and out comes an amp. You do no testing yourself and put no requirements as far as performance on the shop that is "designing" it. Result is all the checklist items marketing wants with performance not even on the back of the priority list.
Does it sound better than a sound bar when paired with a couple of speakers? Should that frequency response not screw things up too bad, maybe. For me? I pass and get an AVR instead.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
