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:
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:
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:
Dynamic range was decent though:
We are clocking at 17 bits or so.
I was surprised to see the frequency response not being flat:
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:
Jitter test shows less than excellent engineering design but audibly it is fine:
Intermodulation distortion versus level tells us more than the SINAD picture:
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:
Linearity test showed the same:
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:
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:
Among AVRs though, it is not half bad:
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:
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:
I tested power into 4 ohm using HDMI in and got this:
But when I used analog input, I could not get as much power before clipping:
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:
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:
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:
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.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The asphalt guy is back to pave the rest of our driveway. Already broken from paying him for the last installment. Unless you relish seeing your host cry poverty all the time, please donating generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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:
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:
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:
Dynamic range was decent though:
We are clocking at 17 bits or so.
I was surprised to see the frequency response not being flat:
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:
Jitter test shows less than excellent engineering design but audibly it is fine:
Intermodulation distortion versus level tells us more than the SINAD picture:
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:
Linearity test showed the same:
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:
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:
Among AVRs though, it is not half bad:
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:
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:
I tested power into 4 ohm using HDMI in and got this:
But when I used analog input, I could not get as much power before clipping:
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:
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:
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:
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.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The asphalt guy is back to pave the rest of our driveway. Already broken from paying him for the last installment. Unless you relish seeing your host cry poverty all the time, please donating generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/