From: utzoo!utcsrgv!newman
Newsgroups: net.audio
Title: NAD and digital ramblings
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1151
Posted: Tue Mar  8 19:48:19 1983
Received: Tue Mar  8 20:01:38 1983


This is a dual-purpose item for anyone who cares. I just got the new NAD 4150
tuner (new in Canada anyway), and the unit is very impressive. The sound is
extremely clean and quiet, and it picks up an astonishing number of stations.
It is also very cheap for this performance ($419 Cdn). I had the opportunity
to A/B it to a Mac MR78, and in the short time I compared them, could hear
no differences at all. (It wouldn't have been meaningful to compare number
of stations because I was using just crummy dipoles, but the NAD was very
competitive). The unit has very sparse controls, 5 FM and 5 AM presets (oh
yeah, it's digitally synthesized). No wide/narrow bandwidth switch. The
only sour note was the first unit I received was a lemon (sorry) - it had a
lot of 60-cycle hum and didn't seem to pick up as many stations as the second
one does.
The second thing I wanted to drool about was one of the first things I heard
on my new tuner was a one-hour demo of the Sony CDP-101 compact digital
audio disk player on some good classical material. It was of course
degraded somewhat by the fm transmission but they turned off all the limiters
and processors they had, and turned down their mikes so you could turn the
volume up. In a word, WOW. The clarity, rock-solid stereo imaging, and
unrestricted frequency response are nothing short of spectacular even over
fm. The complete lack of groove noise was very evident. The Sony unit will
be available in Canada on April 1 for $1495 Cdn. (apparently the first
official announcement). Approx. 50 other firms have been licensed by
Sony/Philips to make the players, and thank god, there is ONE STANDARD
FORMAT. There are supposed to be several hundred disk titles available
now, and at least double that by year end. There will be lots of machines
around so competition will improve things. An interesting point about
these digital players is that when operated within their limits they will
all sound essentially alike! So convenience features will be the things to
look at. A welcome change if you ask me - enough of this crap about the
"musicality" of a phono cartridge. Oh yes - the semiconductor laser and
the disks themselves are essentially lifetime devices - small scratches
do not affect the disks in any way and the plastic coating can be
polished if it gets really bad, restoring the original condition!
Now, hope the price comes down a bit.

Ken Newman
Univ. of Toronto