Introduction NEC is a premium Japanese audio/video manufacturer with a long history of producing some of the finest display devices made. They are famous among industry inner circles for being sticklers for detail and their products are known for quality and advanced design for both professional and consumer usage. The clean lines of this new $8,995 50-inch NEC plasma give it an elegant look in a dedicated theater or indeed almost any living environment. It is a mere 3.8 inches deep and the bezel is as thin as a minimal picture frame. It comes in a beautiful matte silver finish that can actually be removed for painting. This allows the room designer options not available with other units. The PX-50XR4A offers every desirable input and is fluent in both digital and analog. Colors are deep and image quality is first rate. The gray scale is well delineated and accurately displayed. Most importantly, it is impressive when ...

Introduction When it comes to designing and manufacturing components with excellent QRP (quality to price ratio), few companies can match the track record of NAD. For the last three decades, NAD has stayed true to their founding creed, designing and manufacturing components with outstanding performance, excellent value and simplicity of operation. Speaking as a satisfied customer, I’ve owned many NAD products through the years, utilizing them in a broad array of applications with excellent results. NAD has applied this same high-performance, cost-conscious design and manufacturing philosophy to their first seven-channel, surround sound receiver, the T 773. Positioned at the top of NAD’s “Classic” line of audio/video receivers, the T 773 incorporates an extremely full-featured, flexible processor/preamplifier/tuner section with a formidable multi-channel amplifier. Offering the latest surround sound DSP algorithms, with a few proprietary modes as well, the T 773 is also capable of being upgraded via a RS232 port, insuring its ability to stay current with potential ...

Introduction NAD has long been known as a source of quality, reasonably priced audio components, providing performance and value without unnecessary and costly bells and whistles. Although NAD has been around for 30 years, you might say their reputation really started with the legendary, no-frills sonic gem, their 3020 integrated amplifier, about 25 years ago. Although I have had many positive experiences with NAD components over the years, I have not had my hands on one of their pieces since home theater burst onto the scene in earnest in the 1990s. So it was with a great deal of curiosity that I opened the box containing the NAD T762 Surround Sound Receiver a few months ago. The T762 is NAD’s top-of-the-line surround receiver, with six channels of amplification rated at 100 watts per channel, and is priced at a reasonable $1,299. Description As you would expect from a flagship surround sound receiver, the NAD is a ...

Introduction Nintendo’s GameCube videogame system was launched in the United States back in November of 2001, so you may be asking yourself, “Why review it now in June of 2003?” When the system was originally launched, there were very few games and it was unclear as to whether Nintendo could even make a dent in the huge market share owned by Sony’s Playstation and Playstation II. There was also the fear that Microsoft’s Xbox could swallow up the entire videogame industry. Fast-forward to today and all three systems are still in production. The Xbox was not the 800-pound gorilla that many expected, Sony still leads the way and Nintendo’s GameCube has survived and prospered, thanks in part to many exclusive Nintendo franchise games not available on any other system. Now that the retail price of the GameCube is an even more reasonable $150 (down from $200) and I think the chances of seeing a ...

Introduction The NAD C521i is the latest version of NAD’s CD player. It attempts to offer very high audio performance at an affordable price – a goal in which it succeeds, largely via a combination of offshore manufacturing (the unit is made in the People’s Republic of China to NAD specs) and careful product design, focusing on “must-have” features and limiting the implementation of bells and whistles you tend to use only once or twice in the lifetime of a player. The C521i features Burr-Brown 20-bit delta-sigma converters for maximum audio quality. CDs are only 16-bit, but over-specifying the converters is a good decision. Even now, to get true 16-bit capability, you need to aim a little high. Also on the technical side, the unit features separate analog and digital power supply regulation. The actual converter chips inside a piece of digital equipment are one of the least important bits as far as sound is ...