Great sound for a $300 receiver

Hi, I was thinking of buying the Nak AC-7 Receiver from Ubid after hearing one at a friend's house. It sounds excellent, especially the deep bass and clear highs. My question though is will Nakamichi honor the warranty if it was bought from Ubid.Com? Here is the official statement from the Nakamichi site:

"Warranty privilege is null and void for Nakamichi products purchased through non-authorized retailers. Nakamichi does not authorize "mail-order" or "Internet" sales."

Ubid.Com clearly falls undet the Internet sales category so it makes me wonder whether Nak will honor the warranty (if ever I need it). Anybody who has any info will be of great help. Thanks in advance.

Incredible sound, easy operation and setup

none

A follow up to a previous post. The addition of better speaker wire (AudioQuest 4+) has made a tremendous difference. Bass is tight controlled and very present. Also, although some have stated that a break-in period is not neccessary with amplifiers, I have found that time has seriously improved this receiver. Every aspect of performance has improved, even before the introduction of the better speaker wires. Heaven at a good price, what more could one ask for?

Similar Products Used:

Denon 3300

Great Sound! (can't find a nicer sounding receiver for
2channel listening

problem with distortion

Great sounding receiver, but there is one problem.
Since the receiver is only AC-3 ready, and so is my DVD player, then I have to listen to movies in Pro-Logic. Well, I originally had an RCA 5220P DVD player hooked up to the receiver using a pair of RCA cables. DVD's sound great! CD's sound distorted (about half of them). Contacted RCA, they ran me through a whole bunch of settings to help alleviate the problem. Nothing worked. Since RCA isn't exactly the best brand out there, I returned the unit thinking it was defective. Bought a Toshiba 3107. Took it home, same night, same problem. Tried all the inputs, tried different cables. Nothing works. Contacted Nakamichi. Their response "We are not aware of any problems" (seriously, I sent like a 1 1/2 page document explaining everything in great deal. Their whole response was a line!!!!). That really helps. What a great Tech support department. While trying different cables, the RCA shielding came off the receiver with the cable! Great quality control (I've heard of that problen with other Nak receivers as well). I didn't like their original response so i wrote back and told them about the second problem. Same answer: "We are not aware of any distortion problems. You should have the shielding looked at by an authorized repair center." WOW! I am impressed now. I never would've thought of bringing it into a service depot! What was I thinking? I had already brought it in, and they charged me $40 to tell me there's nothing wrong with the receiver! I took the nak to a friend's house. Wired it up to a Sony 330 DVD player. Same problem! What are the chances of 3 different brands/models having the same problem right out of the box!?!?!? So far no one is claiming responsibility. My solution? I bought a CD player, and the Nak is up for sale. I have to say that I'm very disappointed with their support. I was going to buy an AV-8, or AV-10, but they're not getting any more of my money.

Clean powerful sound (amps), Great Ergonomics (ease of use), Good Detail (especially DPL processing)

Quality Control, Bells and Whistles (only if you want them)

I was lucky enough to purchase this unit from UBid for $275.

This receiver was purchased to "fill in" until I can rebuild my entire HT system, it's currently driving an AT 250.1 system. This is the also the forth receiver I've owned: (1) Yamaha 492 older DPL unit, (2) Denon 3200, (3) Yamaha DSPA1.

STRENGTHS
The amps astound me. For this price, you shouldn't be able to get this kind of good clean power, especially in 2 channel mode - wow! Nak really has something figured out with its HTA amp technology (as they call it).

The unit also has some of the best ergonomics I've seen. Very straight forward and basic. This makes for an easy-to-use receiver where other manufacturers build units that leave users scratching their heads even after reading the manual a few times. Nice features like selecting an input, let's say VCR1, via the front panel OR remote control, and the unit powers on automatically and goes to that input for you.

The speaker A+B feature is also nice. I still had my front effects speakers up on the wall from when I had my A1. So I connected them to the speaker B terminals. When watching Cable or a movie (DVD or VHS), I now have 4 mains! Makes for a very lively and large front soundstage.

Inputs and outputs are pretty good for an entry-level piece. It has 4 A/V inputs and I use them all; the 4th input (DVD) doubles as a 5.1 channel input for an external decoder - again, neat. However, there are no S Video inputs, but at $275 I don't think too many receivers do. It has 4 audio-only inputs. Also, I believe that the analog inputs are pure analog pass thrus, which is a big plus in my book, as I don't believe in extra processing.

DPL decoding combined with the amps in the AV7 make for alot of detail. As I said earlier, this unit replaced my Yam A1. Now, I'm not saying it's on par with the A1, but the difference between the two when watching a DVD isn't great enough to justify the price difference of approx. $2000. Consider: I'm forced to watch DVD's in DPL now as my DVD player does not have a DD decoder (the AV7 does not decode DD), and the sound that I get out of the front speakers makes me scratch my head - it's great. The bigger difference is in the surrounds, I feel that plain DPL just can't come close to DD for surround sound.

A very good friend of mine recently purchased the AV10, Nak's highest receiver model, (which decodes DD and DTS) to use the unit as a prepro in his separates system, with the AV10 driving his rears. So far, he's very pleased. He tells me he gets excellent detail. I'll be checking it out soon. :)


WEAKNESSES
DSP's are virtually non-existent on the AV7. I went from DSP king to DSP pauper, but it's OK. The AV7 actually has 2 modes, but they're so subtle you wouldn't even know they were on - it's kind of funny. This is Nak's approach as they are a "purist" type of company. Some may actually consider this a Strength of the unit.

No preouts for any of the 5 channels, but not a surprise at this price point.

No large vs small speaker options? This is truly wierd. I assume they all default to small and the crossover is fixed around 80hz. This is OK for me as my AT's don't go below 80hz anyway. Those with "large" tower speakers which are capable of reproducing sound below 80hz will miss out if they buy an AV7.

Quality control is definitely an issue that the company needs to address. If not for the following 2 complaints I would have labeled it a nearly "perfect" piece for its price category, and I'm a picky guy.

(1) The analog audio and video inputs on the back of the receiver are poorly attached to the unit itself. When making my cable connections I nearly took off one of the inputs, even though I had barely attached the cable to it! Mind you, I was using the tight and nasty Radio Shack Gold cables that are notorious for being overly TIGHT, but this thing was basically "jumping" right off the unit. I managed to push it back on (it only came half-way off) and it still worked fine. I made sure to loosen all the cable connection openings with a pair of needle nose pliers before continuing. This never happened with any of the other 3 receivers I owned so the cable is NOT totally to blame.

(2) The tuner is POOR! This only matters if you like listening to the radio, and I do. I know that mostly all receivers have basic and poor tuners, but this thing is terrible. I also own the $50 Terk toilet bowl looking antenna and it doesn't help my situaton any. When the unit is cold and you turn it on, the tuner works fine. But once the unit warms up, after about 15 minutes, it refuses to lock onto any station. My theory is that the unit's internal cooling fan activates after 15 minutes and interferes with the tuner's reception. And it's NOT the location of the unit in my apt building, as my previous receivers' tuners worked flawlessly.

Similar Products Used:

Denon 3200, Yamaha 492

I had an old sherwood and bought some new Tannoy M2's. There was very good improvement from the stock speakers. I just wanted more bass and a little bigger soundstage. After getting the av-7 I did an a/b comparison with my wife and mother-in-law present. Boy, I expected to hear a difference but I didn't realize how big of a difference it would be. Both my wife and m.i.l. were impressed. After hooking up to my dolby digital sony dvd player I couldn't help but giggle over the quality of movie playback. All the people who've bought into the marketing hype of the mass-merchandise companies should 'think out of the box'. Bells and whistles can never replace well-built, good sounding equipment. There's enough power and flexibility without a lot of rocket science in the NAK av-7. The majority of people can be more than happy with all the features this unit has and you can even control the amount of delay in the rear surround speakers. If you can find the av-7 still at UBID for under 300USD you'll have a very good bargain. It normally retails at 599 and easily can compete with the big boys. And for

This baby sounds so WARM! great quality in terms of built and performance.I'm not gonna bullshit like an expert (or expert-wannabe who talk like some smart-ass so called audiophiles), but in plain English, AV-7 is worth your every dollar!

Huge remote..can live with that. Noisy fan..who cares. Nakamichi stands for its reputation. I've been abusing this unit for music listening and DVDs. Bottom line is, IT DELIVERS!

Great receiver!

I also bought it from ubid last month, after 3 months of research had narrowed down the candidates to either the NV7 or NV8. Imagine how happy I was to pick up this excellent receiver for half the dealer cost. It has proved an incredible buy. The sound quality is simply amazing, and the fan noise, which some have complained online, is totally inaudible.

Bought this product from Ubid. Smoooooth and powerful without all the BS bells and whistles. A definite improvement over my Technics receiver. I listen more to stereo than to movies etc...so its perfect for me. A great simple and muscular receiver that I can use for home theatre when I'm ready. However, i know little or nothing about HT, so I can't speak to this receiver's qualities in that regard. All i know is that its a quality product with superior sound.

Yes, I also bought this machine from Ubid once I saw it shown up there. I believe this one is Year 2000 model. Unbelievable!!! This is only AC3 ready but the sound is outstanding: Clean, Warm, Sweet, Detailed, Powerful, whatever you want to name it. I listen to stereo more than surround and this thing blew me away. It sounds better than a lot of pre/power combos, needless to say about other receivers. 5 solid stars.

http://Nakamichi.com/be careful this receiver DOES NOT has dolby digital (AC-3).
Other than this, the sound is great