Overall excellent sound quality for the price

somewhat limited connections and flexibility

The main advantage this receiver has over all others in its price range is the great sound quality. I have waited several years to upgrade my NAD AV-716 Pro-Logic receiver, because none of the DD receivers I listened to sounded good with music. The T-760 sounds even better than the AV-716 on CDs, because I am running the CD signal to the T-760 via a Canare coaxial digital cable. Compared to a very good analog interconnect, the digital input provides a much more quiet background, a less forward presentation, and more "air" around the instruments. I also like using the EARS setting for music; like the HALL setting on my old AV-716, the EARS setting produces 6 channels of smooth, balanced sound which spreads nicely through the room.

For home theater, the T-760 is very good. The dialog is clean, the blend of the front channels is seamless, and the amps never came close to running out of steam in my medium-sized room. Bass is deep and tight; I run two Boston powered subs, and they've never sounded better. I recently bought the DTS version of Sting's new CD, and it really sounds great on the NAD. It also sounds superb on 24bit/96khz recordings.

I have had no problems with hiss, hum, etc., but I did have a problem with the first unit I bought (left, center, and right channel amps were dead). The dealer paid for return shipping and I have had no problems with the replacement.

Complaints? The remote is pretty shabby, but since I use a Philips Pronto, that is not a factor. Also, the NAD is less flexible than many of the Japanese receivers as far as storing settings for different inputs, etc. NAD keeps it simple, and if this model's somewhat basic feature set suits your system's needs, you will be rewarded with superior sound quality compared to almost any receiver under US$1000.

I paid $730 for mine and I am very happy with my decision.

System:
NAD T-760 receiver
NAD 512 CD player
Toshiba SD-3109 DVD player
AudioRequest music server for mp3 (www.request.com)
Boston Acoustics System 9000 speakers
Boston Acoustics CR-400 subwoofer
Boston Acoustics VR-500 subwoofer

Similar Products Used:

NAD AV-716, misc. Denon

Sweet music for music. Full bodied sound on 5.1/DTS

Not many

Very nice receiver. Rarely is it harsh on the ears even at high volumes.

Considering the prices of the Yamahas and Denons and what you get in terms of sound quality this NAD is the best choice.

Many consumers are caught up in features and seem to forget about sound quality.

Great sound in straight stereo

Permanent hum from all 5 speakers even when mute button is on

The Nad does a good job with Dolby Digital,and is even better in stereo,as long as you play your music at a highish volume or you watch movies without any quiet passages as that humming will really pi** you off. I tried two other units and they were exactly the same,and i finally exchanged for the Denon+money back.
The Denon is much better for movies but music sounds a bit thin compared to the Nad,but still more than acceptable,
and no hum whatsoever!!

Similar Products Used:

Denon avr2800

Great Stereo and Movies, Two Digital Coax In, Soft Clipping, ISC, CD Quality FM Tuner, RDS Tuner, EARS Mode, Imaging, Headroom

Remote, No Gold RCA or Speaker Posts, Digital inputs are not switchable. One Optical In, Sub Crossover Fixed at 100Hz, OSD flips with no video signal, cannot tailor speaker settings you are only allowed to choose from three presets for Small and Large, Plastic Face Plate

I have been searching for two months now for an AV receiver that has great stereo preformance. The NAD won only because I found it for a great price. The Outlaw had a better tonal quality (totally uncolored sound), but was a little thin in the bass (nothing a sub cannot fix). My biggest grip with NAD is that they are skimping on the overall construction of the unit. The front is plastic and the rear panel is not gold, except the NAD LINK RCA posts. I gave the Outlaw a full months test, and the overall flexiblity and construction blow the NAD out of the water. The Outlaw is a tank! It also has 6.1 tech which is good selling point ($600). Not to sound like I am kicking my receiver down the street, but NAD better WAKE UP. The Outlaws are coming!

If it was for the fact I like to listen to my music loud and NAD's Soft Clipping and ISC, I would have stayed an OUTLAW.

Oh and about the remote I replaced it with

http://www.x10.com/products/x10_ur24a.htm

It learns on any button, is backlite, universal, RF and IF, and it is cheap.
Eddie

System
Paradigm Mini Mon. all around
CC-350 Center
PDR-10 Sub
Sony CD
Pioneer DVD

Similar Products Used:

Outlaw 1050, Sony ES333, Denon 2800 & 3300, Marantz 7000, Pioneer Elite

Sound quality and clean look. Price.

No adjustment for subwoofer line-out.

I audtioned 5 HT receivers in the US$2,000 - US$2,500 price range, to replace my aging HT system (9 years old.)

NAD came out as the clear winner, and the most inexpensive one in my price range.

The NAD can also add-on outbroad sound processor when needed.

If you want to build a top notch HT system without breaking the bank. Here's my recommendations, and what I've done recently. (T.V. not included) :-

* I was actually going to get the NAD T770. But my dealer talked me into getting the 760 instead. (even he didn't have the 760 in stock at the time I ordered it sight unseen, after auditing the NAD T770.

- NAD T760 receiver.
- B&W 603 S-2 front speakers.
- B&W CC6 S-2 center speaker.
- B&W 302 rear surround speakers.
- Hsu powered subwoofer (the cheaper, smaller tube one.)
- Toshiba 4109X 6 DVD changer .
- Pioneer Elite LD player (carried over from old system.)
- Audioquest digital inter-connects.
- wide 80 pins SCSI computer ribbons are used for speaker connections, running under the carpet. Terminated and connected to all speakers with banana plugs, and pins to the receiver.

First. The NAD sounds very accurate, clean, smooth, detailed and dynamic, without being overwhelming in any area. You can listen to it for hours.

The NAD 760 is absolute beautiful to look at. Pure and simple.

The remote is very easy to use. I didn't even have to read the manuel. Took me 10 minutes to program everything.

If you want dancing lights and more lights switches than the cockpit of the space shuttle, and useless gimmicky features, brochure power rating, get the Sony, the Yamaha, Denon, and so on from major chain stores / mail order outlets...

Mind you. The NAD is not perfect. I wish the subwoofer line out have an adjustable cross-over frequencies adjustment, instead of the fixed at 100 Hz - but then, that's (100 Hz) cross over point is set by the Dolby Lab's protocol for Dolby 5.1 surround.

So, it's not really a flaw. But I wish that can be a user's option. Especially for a music and movie set up. 100 Hz cross over is too high for music. In fact, anything cross over to the subwoofer higher than 50 Hz is asking for trouble - boommy bass! Even for watching musical concerts on DVD.

I also wish to have a panel light dimmer as well on the NAD.

NAD should also deleted the tuner section from the unit.

In my opinion. The money spent on the tuner section would be money better spent by adding an adjustable cross-over for the subwoofer line-out. Or phono preamp.

Many still own, use and enjoy vinyl record deck.

Listening to radio is not what I'd consider anything remotely enjoyable. Broadcasted music is mostly craps, with horrible sound quality.

To me, and many people that I know. Tuners are a waste of money and resources.

To set the time delay correctly is extremely simple. Just go to the Dolby Lab's web site. They have a very detailed info on how to set things up properly, the language is written for real human, not just for geeks, or gearheads.

They also have a chart there, you just take a few distant measurements from all the speakers in relationship to the listening position, and, just choose and match from the chart. You can set things up in 10 minutes.

THX's web site also have very good info too.

The built in test tone makes channels balancing a snap.

Avoid using small speakers at all costs for main speakers if you can.

All speakers - at least for the front mains and center, should have identical sonic quality, don't mix and match from different types / manufacturers, especially if you
care about music.

Dipole for surround is okay for movies only. Regular monopole speakers are much better for music. Use a full range design as well. (though the rear channels don't
really need to go down as low as the fronts. But make sure they go down to at least 70-80Hz or so.)

For room acoustic treatment. I diffuse the sound from non-bipole surround speakers by placing a cylinder shaped glass, ceramic vasts, filled with sand and decorated with silk flowers and art sculptures a few inches in front of the speakers, to break up the sound patterns.

On the side walls. I use big 8ft by 4 ft original oil paintings, with sonex foam lined up under the frame of the painting. And tall weaven baskets with plastic bags of sand inside and stuck a tall silk plants in it, lined up along the back wall and corners behind the speakers.

My way of acoustic treatment works well and is totally acceptable to the woman in my life. :-)

She actually helped in preparing everything. :P

When paired with decent full range speakers. The NAD T760 actually have a lot of bass - if the bass is in the material. And the bass is very tight, articulate, accurate and very dynamic.

I do not use the subwoofer for music DVD.

The NAD T760 and the B&W 603 S-2 give me all the *quality* bass that I want for most musical materials.

The EARS actually is very enjoyable to listen with, and the textures, details and imagining are very dynamic and clean, sound stage - very wide, and very transparent, yet well controlled and balanced.

But with bad recording. All the flaws on the recording will be unbearable. Nothing like the phony DSP that are so popular amongst other mass marketed consumer electronic HT gears.

NAD and B&W's full range speakers are very close to the ideal match. Especially for jazz, classical, and even non metal rock, electronic music.

But metal lovers will be disappointed though. But who cares about metal music anyway!?

This is my 4th purchase of B&W's speakers, and the 3rd purchase of NAD's products during the last 20 years.

Both NAD and B&W keep improving their products in a sensible, rational and meaningful ways. No gimmicks.

To paraphrase B&W's slogan. "Listen and you'll see."

In fact. The small B&W 302 is an excellent choice for dorm room, bed room or office, or use it as the rear surround channels, as I do for very little cash. Construction and
sound quality is better than most others in similar size or price.

Both companies offer excellent values for the money. Not the cheapest, but highly affordable, high quality stuff that are the best bangs for the money.

The Toshiba 4109X 6 discs DVD changer (24bit/96khz , HDCD, DTS, DD 5.1, Cd, VCD capabilities built-in.) actually sounds much better than my Sony ES cd player by a very wide margin.

The Sony ES is now gone.

The whole system is so quiet. In my listening room, with the equiptment turned on at my normal listening level - around (-15 db) My own breathing and heart beats are the only
sounds that I could hear., and the air conditioning noise when the thermostat kicks in at 75 degree F room temperature.

No. There're better sounding systems out there. Nor it is perfect. But with the combinations that I've here, you'll need to spend 300-400% more money to get anything better, and not by a very wide margin either.

Sure. My audio only system sounds better, but for that audio only system, the preamp alone costs more than the whole HT system listed here.

For gimmicks. Buy something else from major chain stores. But for a good quality system that you will enjoy for many years to come. Get the NAD and B&W speakers.

You won't be sorry.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Denon, McIntosh, Marantz, Harmon Kardon.

Value, sound quality, all channel pre outs. Good sound quality in stereo mode.

Remote, speaker preset selection, bass response. ,

Purchased unit from Ebay, refurbished. This is an excellent reciever when you compare it to all the other market driven junk out there. I don't use the internal amplification, I only use the pre outs to my external amps.
It throws a very accurate sound stage that sounds clear, a bit forward and slightly warm. Much more accurate then the Adcom units which tend too be forward and bright. But not at all tin sounding like the Japanese designed equipment. All in all I find it to be very satisfying to listen to. In stereo only mode, I find the lowest frequencies are no where as good as when I drive my Amps with my NAD 1700 preamp tuner.One should never expect a reciever to provide anywhere near the sound quality of separate components. In Dolby Digital mode the unit performs quite admirably, however again, the low frequencies are not sent to the main speakers even when the sub out is set to off on the speaker presets. All in all I recommend this unit, but don't buy it for anything else but to listen to Dolby Digital. If you used to separate components, you will find it a bit disappointing. But then again most people will only be casual listeners, and in that case this is an excellent unit for the money.


Equipment used

Bryston 4B for front channels
B&K ST140 for rear
Adcom 545 for center
NAD 1700 for stereo, through EPL in Dolby
Snell D mains
Paradigm CC350 center
Paradigm minis rear
Velodyne ULD-15 sub, only for Dolby
Sony DVD 300

Similar Products Used:

Adcom, Sony

Eric, the NAD receiver is no way as bad as you claim. So you've got a faulty set. My experience with the 760 is great. I'm also supporting a higher rating. Two stars is terribly unfair.

Henri, how often do you pause a movie switch to CD and switch back to the movie (video 1, video 2, etc)?? What you're complaining about it lame. A lot of receivers automatically decode dvd soundtracks.. often it's convenient for the user.

Superb sound on music as well as movies, much more power than ratings suggest.

3 to 5 second delay on non-defeatable automatic switching of surround sound modes cuts off the first few seconds on all music and video programs rendering unit useless as a surround sound decoding device and the subwoofer switches off in stereo mode.

The NAD T760 is one of the great tragedies of home theater receivers. Its sound quality is of true audiophile quality on both music and movies and its ultra conservative power rating allows it to retain this clean sound at levels that receivers rated at twice its power cannot attain.

But the unit's superb sound quality is defeated by NAD's unwise decision to allow the T760's decoder chip to automatically detect and switch to the proper decoding mode. It simply takes so long (3 to 5 seconds) to do this that the program is already in progress by the time the sound kicks back in.

It does this every time you pause a dts or Dolby Digital source and go back into the program you are watching which can be quite annoying. And to top that oddity, the subwoofer cannot be used in 2 channel mode. I tested the Pioneer VSX-909s and several other receivers, including NAD's own T770 and none of them behaved this way.

To put it simply, if you have a DVD player with Dolby Digital and/or dts already built in, or you only want a receiver for music listening, that is the only way you will get any enjoyment from the T760, which is a shame because it sounds better than receivers that cost twice its price. It is an even bigger shame that I had to spend $850 on a component that I cannot fully use for home video, the principal reason I bought the T760. I hope this review keeps you from making the same mistake.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer vsx-909s, NAD T770

overall sound and quality of build.
Extremely rich sound

moderate to average tuner.

This NAD has the perfect sound when matched with good speakers. Although Japanese Receivers can sound very nice and clean, I personally prefer a more refined and rich sounding stage ... that is exactly what i got with this great peice. The Nakamichi is very good but just slightly to "high" sounding for my taste. Hey, I mean music and sound is a subjective thing right?! I have found my luxury receiver and its name is NAD T760.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel RSX-965, Rotel RSX-972, NAD T770, Marantz SR-8000, Nakamichi AV-10