Great all around CD Player works fantastic using balanced cables in this type of configuration.

none so far, make sure they pack it well if your having it sent to you.

Great value when compared to other Hi-End systems, the matching S-300 and this unit are a match made in Sonic Heaven. Balanced Outputs and very good, and the new S-70 remote works well with this unit. Best value when comparing this match up to much much more expensive Hi-End systems. Off the chart for value when compared to these. Just sold mine after hearing this combination.

Similar Products Used:

XA7ES Sony/GCD-700 Adcom

Smooth, refined, bulid quality

Too smooth for some systems, won't read some discs

I tried the S500 for a week in my all Rega system:

Planar3 > Planet > Mira > Jura.

The NAD S500 was very kind to poor recordings, and had an extraordinary, resonant midrange. Compared to the my Planet, bass was much "rounder", yet deeper in my system.
Its romantic approach was very appealing with music such as Sinatra or Portishead but it took some excitement out of Asain Dub Foundation, tension out of Laika's latest.

Build quality was the best i've ever seen inside and out. Case construction was brick-like, internal boards were clean and laid out beautifully. However, the silver finish marks easily; both dealer's demo units were marked from ordinary handling.

Unfortunately, the S500 refused to read a couple of CDs, such as Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" and the OST to "Stigmata" Both my demo unit and the dealer's demo player couldn't read the discs. It was also sporadic in reading a number of other CDs.
Control logic was wierd. Pressing rewind once went to the previous track, not the beginning of the current track. To start a song over, one has to press RWD once, then FF. There's no repeat function. Overall a very nice "round earth" unit for certain tastes. Too smooth for me... Also, not being able to read Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" is a definate drawback hehe.
If the S500 can read all your discs, it's definately one to consider.

4 stars for value (CDN pricing)

3 stars overall for disc and control problems

Similar Products Used:

Rega Planet, Naim CD3.5, Rotel 991

Full, rich sound, airy yet tames a lot of brightness I hear in CD's, Deep bass, excellent soundstage both vertically and horizontally, kind to poor recordings, XLR, BNC, Coax, RCA outputs. Built VERY well

No repeat or programming of tracks, discontinued recently

I was fortunate enough to acquire one of these units from jeffssoundvalues.com used for a very reasonable price. If anyone is still considering purchasing one of these units, try yawaonline.com or upscaleaudio.com but I imagine their stock will begin to dwindle soon as the unit has been discontinued and will soon be replaced by a combo DVD-CD player.

In short, this CD player is very impressive. It is a very rich CD player having a lot of sonic qualities of a tubed output stage CD player (it is still solid state however). If you have brighter sounding speakers, this will help tame some of this brightness. I found that it makes listening to CD's with my Paradigm Studio 100's more enjoyable as the brightness has been diminished, the sound is more rich, and the low level details have improved. This is not a hyper-detailed CD player however, and I would not recommend purchasing one if you have bright speakers, as it will do nothing but make the situation worse (IMHO). Soundstaging has improve a bit too, with a bigger sweetspot (or so it seems). I am very satisfied.

System:
Speakers: Paradigm Studio 100/CC/20's
Preamp: Lexicon DC-1 (looking at either the NAD S100 or Anthem Pre2L for a dedicated 2 channel preamp)
Amps: NAD S200, Anthem MCA-3
Cables: DH Labs BL-1's, AQ Slate

Similar Products Used:

Arcam Diva72/92, other less capable models

Soundstage & bass is deep. Clean, warm, sweet, airy & natural sound like phono-sound.

Distance between input terminal is too close, so it is difficult to put the new RCA type interconnect terminal. Power input terminal is too loose for power cord terminal. No repeat and random program.

I have never realized how good this CD player is, before I compared it side by side with Marantz SACD 12SA and ML CD-39.
Compare to Marantz SACD 12SA, NAD S-555 gives more natural, airy, warm and sweet sound like phono-sound, with the same deep soundstage and bass.Marantz produce more metalic sound than NAD.
Compare to ML CD-39, NAD gives more warm and airy sound but lag in detail. ML gives slighly more detail sound but the price is 7X the of NAD. From the craftman point of view, I know that ML is far better than NAD.
So from the sound and price point of view, NAD is the best.
If you want to know the midrange sound, please play CD from Diana Krall (all album), Jasintha (all album), and Carpenter (Best collection album). If you want to know the sound stage depth, please play Chis Spheeris (culture, song no.10, the title is One)and Opus 3 test Cd-5. But if you want to know the bass, please play Four Play, the best of Four Play album, song no.1(Max-O-Man), song no.2(East Bound) and song no.3 (Higher Ground). And you will realize that the sound quality of NAD S-500 is not far form ML CD-39.
My system consists of Sunfire Classic Tube Preamp, NAD S-200 Power Amp, Acoustat Spectra 66 Speaker, and all Cardas Golden Reference interconnct, speaker and power cables.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz SACD 12SA, ML CD-39.

this must be the best cd at this price the bass is deep and the midrange is clear with a lot of details just like the treble but it never get`s hard and(digital) it`s easy to listen to and the finish is outstanding also so the overall impression of this cd must be five stars!!!

CD Player NAD 500S
Very good player, sweet, detailed, warm, with deep bass.
At this price is the best. 24 bits DAC. Class A analogue outputs.
Reference player.

Great detail and soundstage, Balanced output produce greater detail etc.........

RCA Outputs not hearly as good as Balanced.

Well the use of this unit mated with there S-300 intergrated Amp is a match made in heaven. Great depth detail and huge soundstage.!!!! This unit sounds far better on CD playback then both of the SACD units form Sony. So if you can find one don't give it up!

Similar Products Used:

Sony XA7ES/SACD-1/Meridian 508

Excellent Detail & Dynamics Can & Should be used as a Transport.Balanced & Standard Outs plus EBU digital out.

No Programing Of Tracks

An Overall Excellent Player: run the AES/EBU digital out to a Genesis Digital Lens & Then to A DAC (BelCanto DAC-1) & Hear Some of the Best Sound Available without spending Megabucks! This Machine Is Now Somewhat hard to access so Find One & Demo it before they're gone.
Frank F.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz CD-17,Cal Labs CL-15, Meridian 506.20, Sony SCD-777es etc.

Great sound and looks

Odd positioning og open/close knob

Great soundstage and imaging. Gives immediate impression of a very good player that reproduces exactly what is burned into the discs. Very detailed sound and the singers mouth can be pinpointed to an exact location between the speakers - very unlike my old CD-player and the Thule.
Sound is similar to the Rotel RCD 991 which in Norway is more expensive than the NAD S500. Both Rotel and NAD are superior to the Thule in my opinion. The looks of the NAD S500 is great compared to the big ugly Rotel box.

The three players were auditioned in my living room using a Thule IA150B amp with B&W speakers. The only negative thing about the NAD was the strange logic in putting the "open/close" butten *second* next to the tray. I wonder who cooked up that.

I used both balanced (XLR) and standard (RCA) cables but did not recognize any difference.

Simply a great sounding box with a beautiful appearence.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel RCD 991 and Thule CD150B+DIGIT

None really

Lack of detail, bass, makes your recordings sound like they are talking through a tunnel

First of all, I am not saying this is a bad player at all.
I took home a Classe .3 and NAD S500 to do an A/B comparison with my Citation equipment...Needless to say, the results were surprising..Head to head, the classe sounded slightly better with crisper details on the mids/highs and the soundstage was bigger. Not a bad player at all, but a bit pricey for what you get ($1500). The NAD player was an average player it sounded like in my system. The entire spectrum of music really just didn't open up at all and sounded like most of the time it was recorded in a tunnel. Compared to Best Buy model players (avg. Sony/Toshiba) it is still a cut above, but for $1500, not a good bargin at all. For those who are curious, I was using Cardas Cross interconnects between the players and my pre-amp. Now...here is the biggest surprise of the day!!!
The best sound came from using my Sony 7700 DVD as transport with a figital out to my citation for the DAC stage. Without doubt, it sounded the best. Mids/Highs were open and the ambient detail lost in the others was back. I had my brother and a friend listen to the same combos and got the same feedback from them as well. My advice to those who are looking for a good CD player is to look at upgrading and getting a solid pre-amp instead and use the digital output on your CD player (make sure it is a decent transport). A good A/V pre-amp can do more and provide better sound than any CD player I have tested under 4k (of course the Wadia sounds better).

My system:
Citation pre-amp/7.1 amp
Cardas Cross interconnects
Cardas Microtwin interconnects
Sony 7700 DVD
Panamax 1000 Power Conditioner
Infinity reference center and rears
Tara Labs RCS Prime 1000 Speaker (fronts)

Similar Products Used:

Classe .3; Sony 7700 DVD w/Citation 5.0 DAC