The sheer smoothness and fullness of its sound! A 4-fold impovement over my old Music Hall CD32. The soundstage has taken on more depth and width. An appropriate analogy would be that of pulling blankets off your loudspeakers!!!!
If you can find one, it will more than likely be very cheap, you should definately purchase it. Each piece of music played through the 502 has more detail, and this is not "sharp" or tingy, but just 'revealing.' I am very very pleased with this unit compared to my CD32. I haven't tried anything else besides the 502 and the CD32, i would really enjoy comparing the 502 with cambridge audio's CD players, but alas, college students are not the Croesuss of this world, hehe, and therefore cannot afford the gold embossed products of the nether world's audio hardware.

Conclusion: Just buy one!

Build quality, mine was %50 because the tray makes a buzzing sound everytime one loads it and the display has gone out. These two problems i intend to fix, if anyone has any information about repair NAD audio products, please let me know. I will be purchasing a repair book soon, but i want to know if there is anything on the web about this. Thanks

Whoops, i just wrote my summary above. Well, i am as happy as a clam with my matching NADs,Oh god! They are both grey and have green buttons and they both, connected together, sound simply beautiful.

Here is my system

NAD 314
NAD 502
Power Line Conditioner (A Must HAVE!!!)
Pioneer PLA35 turntable
Tara Labs Interconnects
Tara Labs Speaker Cables
Sound Dynamics 300ti



A modest but lovely mid-low end system. Can take your breath away with the right recording

Similar Products Used:

NAD 314
Music Hall CD32

Death of my Sony 505esd cd player was a major bummer. I needed a new player fo r the cheap seats price,and I mean now. So what to do!? I open the Sterophile guide to reccomended components in '95,and voila. The NAD 502 had my name on it for my cheap seats budget. Ranked as a class "C",it was good enough for me. I got mine alittle cheaper than the retail price. Wow, what a great value this unit was/is. It continues to be musical,and articulate. The bass is tight,though the highs are bit dark as Sterophile noted on their assesment. But so what??!! This little gray box guy boogies just fine. Jazz and rock great. I am alittle reticent about its' classical performance,but hey! This aint no Theta,Wadia,Krell,or Acoustic Research,so I cut it some slack,and just enjoy the tunes. It comes with the coxial digital no toslink thank god. The requisite -10dbv RCAs' are here of course. The stark gray panels are in keeping with NAD looks. Love it,hate it,whatever. I have to say,with exception of the Rotel,and the Marantz cd players. This guy has got the best spot on the house for the cheap seats.

I have had NAD502 in my system for almost three years now. It has a broken display and a malfunction drawer now. Not to say it has been sent back to service twice already. If it has a shitty sound too, I wouldn't feel that bad because I could just replace it. However, it indeed has gorgeous sound which cannot be easily replaced. For its warm and musical sound, I would give 502 a five stars but for its terrible reliability I would give it a big zero. So overall it deserves a 3 starts.

I picked up the dealer demo for a good discount and aside from a draw problem which my dealer fixed by
messing with the drawer. He fixed the gear alignment and I haven't had any trouble since.
The only unit I like better is the AMC top of the line unit.This thing is better than all but the
very expensive ones.

Display is dim in daylight.

Very good performance and during it's product life it was hard to find.

sound quality, value

none

It is difficult to provide you with an objective review of just this piece. At the time I purchased this CD player I also purchased the NAD 705 receiver and a pair of B&W DM600 speakers. I have been very happy with this system but it is difficult to separate the individual components out for praise. Having said that the quality of CD playback is the best I've personally experienced. There is a certain ambience or richness of sound with this that I haven't experienced with Cd players in the past. I'm sure there is better but at this pricepoint I feel as though I received very good value. I have only one track on one cd that won't play on this unit although it does play on my portable unit. The remote from the 705 runs the Cd player without any problems. I have not had opportunity to use the fibre optic out. I have not had any of the quality problems that have plagued others. I can't say anything bad about the unit.. I really have no complaints.

Similar Products Used:

technics,sony,hitachi