Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Pioneer 563 vs. Nad 541....CD player challenge!!

I am no audiophile by any means, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night..........
I did alot of searching on this forum and asked advice about CD players. I basically read that you would not hear much difference these days between an all-purpose player {like the Pioneer} and a stand alone player like the NAD. First of all, for those who don't know, the Pioneer plays SACD, CD, and DVD-A. This Nad plays CD's and HDCD discs. Well, against the advice of many, I went ahead and purchased the NAD 541 for around 295.00. It retailed for 499.00. I thought I was getting a good deal and also HDCD with it. So, I went for it. I did a number of tests so bare with me please. This was all done in two-channel stereo also.
The set up was both players plugged in with Radio Shack gold cables {I haven't bought into the cable theories yet} into by NAD 352 integrated amp. My speakers are Axiom m60's. The source discs I used was the Eagles first album and their greatest hits. Neither was re-mastered. I used three songs, Take it Easy, Witchy Women and Peaceful Easy Feeling. Now, I know these are two different discs and before you jump on this, know that after listening to all three songs, I immediately changed discs into the other player to get both sides of the sound.....so to speak. I did these three different times allowing no more than maybe a second difference between players and moreover exactly right on the same time. These three songs have some rocking, slow passages and good banjo. I thought it was a decent mix of songs.
I will tell you straight off that I wanted to hear a difference in players. I guess that is my bias going in. Assuming of course that the stand alone NAD would be a better player. After constant A/B switching between songs and players......I will tell you I hear no difference between the two players. I thought at times, I might have heard something jump out at me, but when I switched over, it was the same. Actually, I think I was disappointed that a retail 499.00 player did not sound any better TO ME and I stress again TO ME than my Pioneer 150.00 dollar unit.
I also did some A/B testing with SACD's and remastered dics.
The test discs SACD's because I had the regular rebook CD's were Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Honky Chateau, Clapton's 461 Ocean Blvd. and Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
I also switched between players in this experiment knowing full well the Pioneer was a SACD player. I will tell you that there is a difference, even in two channel stereo sound, that is emitted from the SACD discs. I never changed the loudness on my amp and the sonic difference and clairity on both players was tremendously noticable with the SACD's. Remember, the NAD doesn't play the true SACD sound. So, to me, like some on this board, the SACD discs have been worth it. Especially the ones I have just mentioned above.
Lastly, I took on re-mastered discs in both players. My tests were E Pluribus Funk-Grand Funk Raiload, Madman Across the Water- Elton John and Kiss Alive. I have all three redbooks and re-masters of each. Once again, I will tell you the same effect as the SACD's. The re-mastered discs in each player was louder at the amp levels, more detailed and fuller sounding than the redbook CD's in two-channel stereo.
So for those who don't believe there is a difference in sound in two channel, I hope this might give you a different perspective. I will tell you this is MY EARS ONLY and as much as I could tell a difference in SACD to Redbook and Re-Mastered to Redbook, I simply could tell no difference between the NAD 541 and my Pioneer 563. By the way, I should mention that I enjoyed the HDCD discs in the NAD player. I just didn't think it was worth 300.00 for that privledge. I did not do a side by side with the HDCD, but the couple I did listen to like Mark Knopfler's- Sailing to Philadelphia, Lucinda Williams- Car Wheels on a Gravel Road sounded better with the Nad than the Pioneer. So for me anyway, I just don't see the need to upgrade to some un-holy amount of money for a CD player. If a player in the 500.00 dollar range sounds no different to me. I don't see myself needing another player other than the 563. Also, by the way. For Rebook CD's the Pioneer, by my ears, does just fine. Now, how about the 10 year old Monster Cables I found..........

Nice comparison...

Few Days ago I also did some comparison on the ($299) NAD C521BEE vs. my Toshiba SD4960 Universal Player. My Experience is opposite of yours. Both were hooked up to an analog interconnect to HK235. I found the NAD to be more precise than the Toshiba. The Toshiba's sound is not controlled campared to the NAD. The NAD had more natural sound and well controlled. Clarity on the NAD was superior to the Toshiba as well. For what I evaluated; I would opt an extra $150.00 for the NAD. I would definitely love to compare the C542 to the C521BEE.

I guess it depends what type of listing you prefer.

Thank you for the honest comparison. Frankly, I was surprised to read it, although I agree with your conclusions. Often with these sorts of tests, you get the superiority of one over the other coming out because audial memory is so incredibly short. When Peter, Adam, and I were comparing the M50s and M22s, we found the best way to do it was to switch between them in the middle of the song (without stopping the player) just so we could tell the difference. Often when one of us had left, we didn't know which speaker was playing, despite the differing characteristics of the two.

I did an abc comparison of the 521 BEE and the C542 by Nad and a California Audio unit. Unfortunately I can't remember the model of that one. It was one of the last ones they produced. I could definitely tell a difference between all three. The 542 is clearly better than the 521 BEE. There was no doubt to these ears.
The California Audio was very close to the C542. Very hard to hear any difference but once again clearly better than the 521. Your mileage may vary.
Sorry to put a gas reference in here.
oz

Thank you for the input...I will be borrowing these units in the next day or two from my dealer. I want to see if its worth extra $200.

I should tell you that the NAD 541 has a 24bit Burr-Brown chip and I know the Pioneer has a 24bit chip and I also think it is a Burr-Brown. The specs between the NAD 541 and 542 seem to me on paper, hardly any different. Of course I know it's our ears that count.

Hey Todd nice post..
Please allow me to tell my experience similar to yours when a/b to very different cd players.
I a/b my new pioneer universal player Pioneer DV588AS $116.00
Verses an old [5years] JVC xzmc22 300 disk player.
588 hooked up with optical and the JVC with analog cable.
Put two of the same disk-DMB stand up in both and hit play on both.
With a few friends we compared- all were in agreement that there was little or no difference between the two. I was amazed myself when we did it.
The Pioneer some said was a little clearer, but others did not hear it.
I can’t remember the post but awhile ago Alan mention that he himself did not think there was much difference between players.
Again enjoyed your finding a lot.

For me there was no question that it was worth the 200.00 extra. The bottom end was much richer. I was all ready to order the 542 when the night before placing the order I got a great deal on ebay for something else.

Todd, I dislike the redbook playback of my Pioneer 563. After I had my 563 for a while, I took it over to my buddy's place (who I had talked into getting Axiom M80s, btw), plugged it in, and compared it to his NAD 542. We thought the NAD was superior. Soundstage was more precise, less muddy, with detailed highs, not the grainy highs from the pioneer (forgive the adjectives). The Pioneer seemed to mush everything together and this was easy for us to hear. Incidentally, I had a Technics changer that was five years older than the Pioneer which I thought sounded better in many areas.

Later, I got a Njoe Tjoeb and while this proved an even better improvement over my buddy's NAD, I did not feel it was worth the price and posted those thoughts here. I was then insulted for my gullibility or to put it another way, my personal choice how to spend my disposable income. ??? Good to see no one has told you that you have tin ears. Even if you did, it wouldn't matter. What I am getting at is, just listen to what you like and be happy you have determined that you made the right choice...for you. I'm still enjoying the Njoe Tjoeb and have reconsidered selling.

My vinyl beats all though in all areas. Even shopping for music. I wouldn't trade my afternoons rummaging crates for lps for all the money in the world.

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My vinyl beats all though in all areas. Even shopping for music. I wouldn't trade my afternoons rummaging crates for lps for all the money in the world.

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I totally agree with you. I'll take a $2.00 LP over a compressed digitally remastered CD anyday.

And I'll take a CD copy that doesn't degrade with each listen, that doesn't have more added noise, that doesn't have a recessed top end, that costs me nothing over an LP anyday.

I must addmit I have flirted with the thought of getting back into lps but the main factor for me was storage.I really don't have the room for them.Plus to do it right the cost of a good player isn't exactly cheap.

Do yourself a favor and get a turntable. I have had more people come over to my house talking about how horrible vinyl is and how superior cd is and leave telling me how wrong they were. I have numerous copies on both cd and vinyl which I play as demonstrations. Also, it is a misconception that you will have noise and popping while you play your records. Yes, some lp's will have some noise, but most play brilliantly. Most people who knock vinyl don't have a system and base their knowledge on their old turntables. Having said all that, modern music recorded digitally doesn't sound very good on vinyl and I still continue to purchase newer music on cd.

Just out of curiosity and being in the mood to ask a dumb question ..

Are there any differences in the manufacturing process of vinal LPs today than say like 25 or more years ago, i.e. better and longer lasting materials and etc.?

I'll answer your question with another dumb question. Do they even still MAKE vinyl LPs ? I haven't seen one in a store for a long time... and the only people I know with LPs are just voices on the internet (no offence guys ).

bridgman, musicdirect.com is a good source for vinyl. I get a newletter from them all the time and they advertise new releases on vinyl. I think a lot are imports. I don't know about the quality though.

Good to know. Thanks !!

They definitely still make vinyl. Tool have just released their "Lateralus" album on vinyl, and all of their others were also available on it. Also, along with the 30th Anniversary Dark Side of the Moon SACD there was a new vinyl edition.

So, yeah, still being made. And I don't know about the quality either. I know when I go through my father's old records some are very thin and flimsy, while others are more substantial. They know how to put art on the vinyl itself now, but maybe they've known how for awhile...Lateralus.

John, yes, LP recordings are still made and bought by collectors interested in that format(less than 1% of music sales). The technology is clearly obsolescent and isn't competitive with digital CD technology with respect to accuracy in reproducing 20-20,000 Hz with inaudibly low noise and distortion.

...and wow, and flutter, and groove swish...

I do miss "real" album art, though. The artistry on a 12 inch long playing vinyl record sleeve was so often beautiful.

BTW a lot of new punk and power pop is released on vinyl still. Fat Wreck Chords has a "Fat Club" you can join where they send you a new 7" every month and a lot of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes stuff is released solely on vinyl.

Bren R.

Although the thread is about the two cd players, I'll answer:

I have the Dorati Firebird suite on SACD and vinyl reissue. I have presented this comparison to dozens of people and they always choose the vinyl. I've always been amazed at the amount of people who will denigrate vinyl but haven't heard a decent setup (talking about my friends here - boy were their minds changed). Most however, haven't bought turntables simply because it is too inconvenient (convenience means higher sales and there's the rub).

Try: the labels, MusicDirect, Amazon UK, etc.. for new vinyl. New vinyl today is abundant with high quality. It's much better than during the 80s and 1000 times better than that RCA Dynaflex crap from the 70s. Gorgeous sounding albums like White Stripes De Stijl were taken directly from tape to vinyl. Spoon's last album was done on Pro Tools but sounds glorious. The classical reissues are so good it's ridiculous. Many of those I have on SACD and the vinyl beats that.

Secondly, if one is seriously into music, the financial investment is mitigated by the inexpensive used vinyl out there. It's that simple...unless you are downloading of course or are not interested in pre mid 80s music.

Thirdly, only a vinyl collector who doesn't take care of his lps, plays the same record a zillion times, and who can't set up a cartridge properly will experience degradation. Degradation is largely a myth. If you have 500 to 1,000 new lps, how often are you going to play them?

Fourth, most cds are indeed compressed and mastered with "all the knobs turned up", thereby robbing it of dynamics, subtlety, tonal variation and "accuracy" is lost. In my circles, this is largely agreed upon. DDD classical works are some of the worst examples of this. I'd prefer not to denigrate cd as music is music and it is wonderful in any format. I find it most telling that most vinyl supporters talk about how they love the sound and most cd supporters talk about bits and bytes and frequency ranges. Maybe I'm wrong but cd supporters mostly tend to argue their points in the negative as well. Also, telling.

Fifth, wow and flutter is now eliminated as there are now simple products made to eliminate it. Higher end tables do not have w&f. Wow and flutter is now eliminated and if there is w&f it is below the human hearing capabilities. In this case, technology doesn't seem to be "obsolescent". It is quite easy to examine speed consistency of your table and verify this. We are talking about tables made in the last decade, right?

Lastly, the amount of people into vinyl has no bearing on it's quality as indicated in this thread. McDonalds has sold a billion hamburgers but that doesn't mean it's good food. In the end, most people exposed to decent vinyl playback prefer the sound but not the extra work it takes. It's not about fidelity and accuracy (it's only a word), it's about enjoying the music. If one thinks cd is better and more enjoyable good for them but let's keep the discussion honest and without manipulation.

I know LPs can sound fantastic -- there's definitely care and attention placed into their production. And if you're going by numbers, it stands to reason that a higher percentage of LPs were mastered with "care and loving" than CDs. But is it really fair to compare well-mastered vinyl and poorly-mastered CDs? You mention nothing about the breathtaking ability of a well-mastered CD to transport you "into the moment".

One of the best things going for CD technology is that you don't need to spend a lot of money to reveal most of the benefits of the technology. Almost any modern CD player and any receiver connected to a pair of speakers like Axioms will perform wonderfully. With vinyl, however, a fair amount of tweaking and some expensive pieces of equipment are often required. You have your plinth, your platter, your tone arm, your cartridge, your phono pre-amp, etc. etc. Some bargains can be found, sure, but on average and dollar for dollar, I'm willing to bet better sound can be had from a CD-based system than one that is vinyl-based.

I mentioned I had countless friends over to compare the Dorati Firebird Suite SACD and Vinyl versions...two magnificent versions. Comments I usually hear are: more thrilling, palpable, emotional or often, simply just "better". It never fails. Do they run off and get turntables, of course not! It's not plug and play and it requires time.

I did say I wasn't interested in denigrating cd playback and I truly meant that. My response was more or less to address some comments I thought were inaccurate (wow and flutter, degradation, etc...). I have some 500 cds and about 20 SACDs. When I play the Stones I choose the SACDs.

I'd agree you can put together a better cd system for less money. But the software is more expensive. Used vinyl is cheaper with way more variety. Depends on your taste and how much music you listen to. It's a pretty sweet deal to come home with 7 great lps and have only expended $35. On the other hand, new vinyl reissues and classical are more expensive than CDs or SACD. On the other other hand, new vinyl buys are limited production and hold or increase their value. I have numerous newly released albums that are worth more today than when I bought them. There is a limited supply of decent used vinyl so I'm happy that most people aren't into it.

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My response was more or less to address some comments I thought were inaccurate (wow and flutter, degradation, etc...)

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Whoops... those things are issues with vinyl (along with groove swish and warping). The same way that cassette is prone to stretching and to tape tension. Those are straight facts about the medium. Wow and flutter were also issues with the first generation of CD players, but even moderately priced players are at or below measurable levels these days.

And vinyl is sacrificial, every time you play it, the stylus does damage to the media. It's also relatively soft, if you stack vinyl, the grooves compress, if you stand it up, it gets wavy.

Now, I recently bought a new turntable, mostly to transfer some absolutely irreplaceable vinyl (local 80s punk with pressings of <300 copies) and it was a real throwback to drop a needle for the first time in 10 years, and the very "round" sound brought me back to a time when I couldn't wait to listen to a new album I'd purchased (rather than it sitting on a pile until I have time to listen to it)... it didn't take long to remind me of the reasons I was so enthralled with the first CD I heard though... pops and clicks, even on albums that I was transfering for people that kept their vinyl in a museum-like state... sizzling highs and holes in the lows.

Is CD perfect? Of course not, but the issues I have with compact disc have more to do with the engineering on them than the medium. Since it's so easy for any kid with a trucker hat or Peppermint Patty hair or spiked dickbag to get a free copy of ProTools and hang out a shingle as an audio engineer, whipping out CDs for all his Battle of the Bands buddies on mom's Dell Dimension... quality suffers.

Bren R.

No. Wow and flutter is reduced in any decent, properly maintained table to below the capability of human hearing. Anyone who can read can setup a stylus correctly so that it doesn't damage records and so that they will last a lifetime. And no, stored upright, they do not warp or I must be darn lucky that so few of my used records are warped. Properly clean records do not pop and click unless they are damaged or scratched. It's that simple. But, obviously time consuming. Enjoy the cds.

I recently bought Beck's Guero on 180g 45rpm vinyl. A friend of mine came over, listened to it for awhile and told me it blew his cd version out of the water. His set-up at home is Paradigm Reference Studio 60 v3's, Bryston 3B SST and I'm not sure about the cd player. He had the vinyl in hand not 2 days later. My wife really loves the album so we bought the cd just this last week and I too enjoy the vinyl version better. I love the fact that music is subjective.

That's Beck as in Jeff Beck - guitar wanker, or Beck as in the moderately retarded homeless guy with two turntables and a microphone?

Just in jest,
Bren R.

It's "the other Beck", not "Jeff Beck".

80s punk on vinyl. pretty sweet!