For the price, you cannot beat the sound it produces. [I paid just $233 for a brand new one (complete with the manufacturer's warranty). Be sure to shop around!] It does take a while to break in, but -- once broken in -- be prepared for a lot of clean, clear, warm, natural-sounding music. It does especially well with jazz and vocal recordings.

i dont really know much about the differences in sounds produced from different cd players, i am just commenting on the mechanics of the system.
it takes a long time for the cd player to recognise a cd, and worse still, when i skip tracks, sometimes it fails to detect it and it reads "no disc"

maybe cos its new, therefore it needs some warming up. but from what i've experience, i'm hesistant to get a low grade cd player. i hate those "no disc" warnings.

Great Sound, tight bass, non fatiguing highs/treble.

Sometimes the CD door closes by itself when you are putting in a CD. This happens once in a while and when I haven't properly placed the CD into the drawer, it still closes the door.

The other thing I am experiencing is that the 522 seems to have trouble playing CD-Rs. There are pops/clicks in the CD-R. The same CD-R plays fine on my 15 year Yamaha CD player. Store bought CDs seem okay. I have tried different brands of CD-Rs, burned at 1x and 2x, but I can't get the NAD 522 to read the CD-R cleanly without the odd pop/click.

I'll like to hear feedback on this CD-R issue at

brucewayne100@hotmail.com

I'll give it a 3 for reliability (door, pop/clicks on CD-R) and a 4 for value (I bought it for $425 CDN).

I hate the remote. NAD should go to ergonomics school. The volume up/down should be bigger, the remote should be round shaped to fit the hand (not square).

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Yamaha 15 year old CD - skips now

Price

Muddy sound

I walked into a local store here in Denver (Gold Sound) and was there to purchase a closeout set of PSB Century 500i's and walked out with a CD player instead.

Audition the NAD next to the Marantz (CD-48) and you will definitely find that the Marantz has a tighter sound overall, as well as a more refined soundstage. Sorry to post a "basher" posting, but I believe that if you audition the Marantz (which gets higher ratings on here), you will be much happier! Plus, I belive the Marantz can be had for a bit less these days.

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Marantz CD-48

Detailed soundstage; fairly accurate musical reproduction.

No digital output.

NAD has always been known for a no frills exterior design approach while concentrating on inner design. This CD player still impresses me with the way details are presented. The musical soundstage has both width and depth. There is no merging of instruments or vocals. Highs and lows sound very natural and have a straightforward characteristic to them. The mid's are just wonderful. Vocals sound as smooth as silk. And instruments sound realistic without a synthesized timbre to them.

While a digital output would have been nice to have, the analog output sounds clean. NAD seems to have taken care of ensuring that the D/A converters do their job in an unobstrusive manner. I think vinyl lovers would really appreciate the sonic qualities of this CD player which I am tempted to say almost has a tube-like quality to it.

There seem to be some good deals on used 522's (EBAY, etc.). I have not experienced (even once), the mechanical difficulties listed by other reviewers. And in fact, this model has no problems reading music CD-R's that I have recorded. Actually, even my 16-year-old Denon (DCD-1500) can read music CD-R's. If you're in the market for a basic, no-nonsense CD player and want to keep the cost down while enjoying audiophile qualities, the NAD 522 would be a gem for the money.

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Denon CD Player.

I was anticipating NAD finally releasing this player to the public. Mainly because my experience with their other players had left me thinking "NAD makes excellent amps and tuners, what moron designed their cd players?". My NAD 512 made terribly too bright sounds in my system, its search buttons didn't work, and the quality of the display was very poor.
The NAD 522 has excellent sound for the money (about $450 Canadian). Even though my Marantz player is only $50 more - for a 5 cd changer - I can't say which player I'd prefer. The Marantz has excellent sound for a changer, but the NAD has a totally "different" sound. It isn't easy to contrast the two because they differ so much - but they are both good.
The NAD is much brighter and sharper but the Marantz has a much smoother response. Both boast excellent midrange clarity for the cash, which leads to excellent spatial imaging and soundstage depth. NAD has had the display improved slightly, and I could read it from all directions. I will have to purchase this model soon - it is definitely a unique performer. I give it a 5 for value.

Beautiful remote handset

No digital output, defocussed soundstage, flat, coarse and uninvolving sound

Boy, many reviewers here are absolutely right: hearing CDs with pops and a scratchy background is not really anyone's ideal of Hi-Fi!

I bought the 522 as my first separate CD player, along with a NAD 312 amp and B&W 601 speakers. Nine days after my purchase, I inserted a CD into the rather wobbly and noisy drawer, and there it was: the music was smothered by a scratchy background. The portuguese distributor took three months (yes, you read that right) to repair it and send it back! And - guess what? A few months later the same problem appeared!!! Small wonder this player has only been in production for about a year...

It seems this player has very poor tracking. It works well with some discs and simply won't play others - and I'm not just talking about CD-Rs. Oh - did I say "it works well"? That's strictly relative, as this is a very poor performer. Its sound is coarse, it has next to no detail and it is a rather flat-sounding player. CD at its worse, really. Soundstage has no depth, and that's CD nature anyway, but NAD still managed to take this a little further: the soundstage the 522 produces is shallow, narrow and defocussed - we're hardly talking "pinpointing imagery" here.

To quote HiFi Choice's very accurate review, the NAD 522 is a "crude, mechanical sounding player that fails to tickle the music buds". Couldn't agree more. It is an anti-musical player that leaves you with a 'something's missing' sensation when you listen to music through it.

The only time my 522 produced something vaguely similar to music was straight out of the box, before running in, when it produced a nice, sweet and involving sound (though with limited resolution). Then it became thinner and harsher, coming into its own after 2 days - so don't bother to run it in. Better still, don't bother to BUY it. It's one of the most serious contenders to the 'worst player of the 20th Century' accolade. It belies NAD's reputation, and I'm glad it has been discontinued and replaced by the C520 model (you'll care to notice the 522 Philips transport mechanism was replaced by a Sanyo transport in the C520, which should mean something).

The bottom line here is: if you're looking for a second-hand budget CD player, avoid this one.

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Technics SL-PS770A

The NAD 522 is by far the best CD player you can buy for the money. I paid $200. Teamed with my NAD 712 reciever and Energy ExL 16 speakers, I can't think of a better low-budget system. It has great image, crisp sound, and plenty of personality (the personality is mostly from the speakers). I have had no experience with skipping, or slow spin-up. It's just a great buy, and simply blows anything in its price range out of the water. My only advice: the interconnect cables that come with the 522 suck. Get some aftermarket cables.

The nicest sounding player I've yet tested in this price range. It DOES take awhile to break in, which may explain some of the disparity over the ratings of NAD CD Players on this site. For the heck of it, a comparison with the 512 yielded some interesting differences. The 522 offers more detail and deeper bass; however on more forward-sounding popular disks the 512 seemed to sound slightly more pleasant. The 512 has better build quality and a digital output, as well as a servo analog stage. I'd have liked to have seen the heftier 512 design updated with new high quality Burr-Brown DACs, keeping the older drive assembly and servo analog stage. The 512 is definately quicker at searching and loading disks. But the 512 is no longer available new. And on high quality recordings the 522 offers more sonic detail. A very listenable player after some break-in time. A good buy for the $.

Good soundstaging, tight bass

mechanical reliability, error detection, access speed, features

I'm a diehard NAD fan so posting this review is tough but I need to warn my fellow audiophiles...avoid this player at all costs. I bought my 522 last year and have had nothing but problems with it. The sound quality is very good and compares favorably with players from Rotel (which I compared it to). However, it absolutely sucks mechanically...I've had it in the shop three times and it still doesn't work 100% of the time. Major beefs: it doesn't recognize a disc when it's in the drive 33% of the time forcing me to hit the "open" button to retract and reload my CD. Then, it takes the player 6-8 seconds to read the CD (an eternity...trust me). Finally, don't have a flawed disc because it will hop, skip and jump at the sign of any imperfection...very annoying.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS PRODUCT FOLKS...NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OR MONEY.

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Denon, Yamaha