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Review and Measurements of NAD T777 AVR

MASKINEN

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@amirm Sorry if I missed it but did you test and/ or posted SINAD vs Measured level for this receiver? The NAD T777.
 

toddsdonald

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the NAD T777 V3 Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It is on kind loan from a generous member who has loaned me a bunch of other gear. The T777 is a high-end offering from NAD and costs US $2,750.

The front panel and controls have some of the best look and feel of any AVR I have tested so far:


The volume control actually feels like a volume control and not some stiff knob as is common in likes of Pioneer. The 4-way selector on the left is very responsive but I still find it odd that it doesn't have a click in the middle. The menus are more to the point although still obscure as other AVRs. What does PCM Surround mean? That I sent it multiple channels of PCM or that it is simulating surround?

The front panel "Display" button was great in getting insight into audio and video formats being fed to the unit. It cycles through different aspects of the input signal from audio to video. Like it though wish all of it was shown at once.

Back panel shows the NAD modular scheme of this machine:


Elimination of legacy composite and component video inputs makes the back panel a lot cleaner. That said, it is still obscure. The top set of RCA jacks for example says Audio 5 but not if this is input or output.

Speaker terminals are a step above budget AVRs, able to solidly hold my very heavy banana cables without looking like they are going to break any minute.

I drove the unit using HDMI from my PC. A reboot was required for proper output and resetting of Windows display settings. Without it, I could barely see what I was doing! My computer monitor can sync to my PC. Why do consumer electronic devices still have so much problem with computers in this day and age?

And interesting thing was the Nvidia card in my machine recognizing no less than 16 channels of audio! This made it a bit of a pain to test as I had to keep turning off the extra channels. In some cases, I could not and even though I was feeding the unit 2 channels, it would report 3.1 or some such thing.

I should note that this is one heavy AVR. A large toroidal transformer sits on the left side making that corner extremely heavy. My lab is in a loft and this was at the limit of what I could carry by myself up the stairs.

Anyway, my overall impression of the NAD T777 is very positive. It had a luxurious feel that I find quite lacking in AVRs.

For testing, I had to do a factory reset as once again Dirac EQ settings could not be reset from the menus.

HDMI DAC Audio Measurements
Here is our dashboard view, feeding the unit through HDMI and measuring on Pre-out:

View attachment 34840

Yes, another disappointing performance. SINAD (signal over noise and distortion) is set by the high third harmonic to the tune of 84 dB, placing the unit in the forth and worse bucket of all DACs tested so far:
View attachment 34841

Among AVRs, the performance is in the middle (numerically speaking). It is however much better than T758 whose amplifiers clipped severely, taking down the DACs with it:

View attachment 34842

Dynamic range was decent though:
View attachment 34843

We are clocking at 17 bits or so.

I was surprised to see the frequency response not being flat:

View attachment 34844

Don't know what explains this.

Filter response was classic DAC chip implementation where instead of rolling off rapidly to 22.05 kHz, it takes its time to 24 kHz:

View attachment 34846

Jitter test shows less than excellent engineering design but audibly it is fine:
View attachment 34847

Intermodulation distortion versus level tells us more than the SINAD picture:

View attachment 34848

We see that performance is best at around -7 dB, giving us 90 dB of "SINAD." As we climb to 0 dB volume level, we lose fair bit to SINAD of 78 dB. The latter may be due to stress caused by the amplifiers being driven hard.

Multitone test shows what we already know:
View attachment 34850

Linearity test showed the same:
View attachment 34851

The zigzag nature of the curve tends to indicate truncation of 24 bits rather than proper dither. The exponential rise indicates noise swamping the signal. One channel is worse than the other as you see, showing lack of precision in design.

Amplifier Audio Measurements
Let's throw a stereo signal at the unit using HDMI and measure 5 watts into 4 ohm and see what we get:

View attachment 34852

Not pretty. Not only do we have a lot of harmonic distortion and noise, we also have power supply spikes at 120 Hz indicating lack of sufficient capacitor reserves or poor grounding. The 120 Hz is so high that it is helping reduce SINAD although it is not as audible as harmonic distortion. Needless to say, ranking with respect to all amplifiers tested is not good:

View attachment 34853

Among AVRs though, it is not half bad:

View attachment 34854

Pressing the display button told me 3 channels were active even though I was sending it 2. So I used analog input from here on starting with the repeat of the dashboard:

View attachment 34855

Fortunately (or not), performance was the same with analog input indicating the amplifier is the limiting performance, not the DAC.

Dynamic range at full output level or just 5 watt is rather disappointing:
View attachment 34856

I tested power into 4 ohm using HDMI in and got this:
View attachment 34857

But when I used analog input, I could not get as much power before clipping:
View attachment 34858

Given the sharpness of the "knee" in the curve it is hard to determine the exact clipping point but still, the difference is a bit odd. Perhaps analog input stage clips itself?

Using analog input, here is our power into 8 ohm:
View attachment 34859

Spec is 120 watts and we are close enough to it to be fine with that. Notice the improved performance relative to its smaller brother, the T758 AVR. Then again, long, long ways away from state-of-the-art amplifiers like the Purifi.

Peak power shows a lot of reserve capacity:
View attachment 34861

The power supply is designed to drive more channels than 2 that we are testing. And without regulation, we are able to produce a lot more juice this way which is handy for handing high dynamic range in movies and such that don't last long.

Checking sensitivity to source frequency we get:

View attachment 34862

Ideal amplifier would not care and all the graphs would land on top of each other. Here, we see at both extremes the T777 gets a bit unhappy. it clips earlier at 20 Hz (orange) and distortion spikes up and down throughout the graph. It is likewise wiggly at 20 kHz (red). Not too bad though.

Conclusions
As avid readers of the forum would have predicted, the NAD T777 V3 produces "OK" performance, unable to break away from the pack in any meaningful way. Desktop products run circles around it as a result. All is not lost though. The look and feel of the unit is excellent. The extra beefy power supply and amplifiers help to improve performance over lower end units in the line. And Dirac EQ should be a great help in producing much better in-room performance than a system without.

Measurable performance fails to garner my recommendation. But you have the data to decide otherwise.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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I realize this is an older thread. As someone who doesn't understand the measurements and how they relate to performance, yet considering this receiver used for about $500 for home theater setup in my living room, is this a good choice?

Currently I'm running an NAD T757v2 that I paid $75 for and I'm super impressed with it so far.

I suppose what I'm asking is if there's a way to decipher the review in such a way that it is in layman's terms. It seems like it should have plenty of power to drive 8 ohm speakers. My current receiver gets way louder than I'd ever listen to. Most streaming services we play at about -20 to -15 db and Blurays that are super clean and DTS HD or Dolby Master HD (I think that's correct), sometimes I'll play at -10 db.

This receiver has some more modern features that are attractive to me, and more power if I ever build a home theater.

I'm also wondering about the graph that shows the Sony ranking high for whatever that measurement is, but I've had the Sony ES and the current NAD I've got blows it away in terms of sound quality, dynamics and power... Or is that graph backwards and the lower rated ones are better?

Thanks
 

gclements82

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Hi,
I own one of these receivers.... i enjoy as it will do me dolby atmos music on tidal and apple music...

However if i was to use a different power amp and dac for stereo duties would i see a removal of the short comings in this review if it was used solely as a preamp for stereo stuff?
 

Sal1950

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Hi,
I own one of these receivers.... i enjoy as it will do me dolby atmos music on tidal and apple music...

However if i was to use a different power amp and dac for stereo duties would i see a removal of the short comings in this review if it was used solely as a preamp for stereo stuff?
I very much doubt it. The unit shows areas where it could be better but how audible the failings are is debatable.
And then there is the question of Dirac, if you have done a good job configuring it, doing what you ask will disable it's use
and you could very possibly end up with a negative end result.
If you are enjoying what it's doing in multich/atmos, 2ch should be just as good.
 

peng

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Hi,
I own one of these receivers.... i enjoy as it will do me dolby atmos music on tidal and apple music...

However if i was to use a different power amp and dac for stereo duties would i see a removal of the short comings in this review if it was used solely as a preamp for stereo stuff?

If you have doubts, and second guessing, then you may just take advantage of the fact that there are no shortage of people who like the NAD "sound" (then personally I think except for some specific cases, it's only in people's head) and sell it for a good price and then pick something up that measures much better for probably less money.

Otherwise, as mentioned, if you configure and run Dirac Live the best way you can, then just enjoy it, and forget about those measurements that may not make any difference for real world use.
 
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