Clean design.

Hard to find buttons on the remote.

I had mine for just three days.
I played DVD:s and CD:s. The machine would occasionally hang, when pausing or using the menu or even when the disc ended. The only thing I could do was to unplug it for a while and then give it another try..
The shop says there is nothing wrong with it, so maybe we just imagined it....... (I have witnesses). This made me decide not to keep it.
When it worked, both audio and video where excellent, though.
Being so unreliabIe, I can't give it more than two stars.

Similar Products Used:

Thomson 3600

Fantastic sound, typical NAD quality design

Picture quality issues on my unit (possibly just my eyes?)

First off, let me start by saying that this unit puts out
a fantastic sound. It's very warm and real like all NAD
products. Last year I setup a HT system including a Harman/Kardon AVR65 reciever and a Sony DVP-S330 dvd player.
When I bought my first piece of NAD gear, the 515 cd changer, I was suddenly hooked on NAD. I've since replaced the H/K with a NAD T770 reciever, which I am MORE than happy with, and this T550 dvd player.

I am incredibly satisfied with the sound quality in this unit. It's a huge step up from the old Sony. However, I find that this unit's picture quality is a step down. The video seems very grainy, but my big concern is the horizontal lines that seem very "digitized" when the unit is rendering curves or skinny straight lines. Does anyone else have this problem? My Sony did it as well, and I'm sure it's a problem with the DVD format, but this unit seems to do it to an almost unacceptable level. Any help would be appreciated.

Overall, I'll give this unit 4 stars, because everyone else is saying it has an excellent picture, so it may be just me.

Mike Melli
mike@i13.net

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-S330 DVD Player

BURR BROWN DACS,SHARP PICTURE,SOUND IS AMAZZZZZZING. FRONT PANNEL IS CLEAN WITH A NO "BELLS AND WHISTLES."

REMOTE CONTROL

The NAD is a great unit. I find the picture to be very sharp. Not subtle at all,but well defined.
The color is vibrant but not fatigueing.
The sound is what really grabs you. Such detail and definition in the sounds you hear. Most of the movies I have watched on the NAD were Sci Fi and were quite enjoyable for the 6,7,8,9...th time.

The NAD is a quiet performer. From the time you turn it on and load a disc and play, you will forget it was ever on.

My only gripe/peave is the remote control. The buttons are placed in odd areas and you will difinately have to turn on the lights to know which buttond to press.
Also the RC 2000 remote can not learn all the functions of the NAD remote.So now my universal remote has a friend.

If anyone is in the market for a Dvd player . The NAD 550 is a prime canidate.

Similar Products Used:

TOSHIBA 3107, PIONEER 525.

Audio(especiallly for CD and DVD-audio), design, and price

lack dinamic for action film, picture too soft, and hard use remote control - not ergonomic, bwaah,

For the first, I searching a high quality CD player, and I stuck on NAD C540, sound is very detailed and clear (I impressed for using metal film resistor and polypropilene audiophile grade capacitor). After I going to the shop, I see NAD DVD product overthere, and I tempted to try its audio performance. Wow, T550 can sound similiar to C540 and it uses the same resistors and capacitors for its audio, and the burr-brown DAC. ( I can get both audio and film for the last)
Before I purchase that T550, I compared it with Pioneer DV-525 at the same shop. here my reviews:

# NAD is very good (better than Pioneer - Pioneer produce a wrong piano sound )in music but too sweet for film, it lack in dynamic and transient (especially for action film - I choose Pioneer)
# Picture too soft, not sharp, (Pioneer is better)

If you decide to using this DVD first for music, its a good choice (like me), but If you want to searching good equipment for home theatre, better you choose Pioneer or Denon.

Similar Products Used:

compared with Pioneer DV-525

sound quality, movie quality, design, customer service

remote from hell, quality control

I have had similar experiences to the others who have bought this machine. I chose it primarily because I had to replace my CD player. Since sound quality was the primary concern, NAD, with it's audiophile reputation, seemed the prime choice. After AB comparisons with their 540 unit I decided. The DVD player gave up only a little bit of "air" to the 540. Great sound and great visuals!
Unfortunately, poor quality control. The DVD player sounded great but there were many antialiasing artifacts. The dealer, Harvey Electronics, did not acknowledge a defective machine and said that the cure to my problem was to buy a $2800 progressive scan TV. So I bought one. Just kidding.
Anyway, I called NAD myself and found out about the "patch", the program upgrade. I must say, however, that they were very helpful, I sent the machine to their distributer who dutifully fixed the machine and returned it within 3 days after they had received it!
NOW I have great sound AND great visuals and I am very happy, although I am very suprised that NAD rushed this player out with premature coding. 5 stars, partly due to the timely customer service

Sound!!!

Remote is silly.

I was looking for a do all player in my system. One that could do DVD well and also play audio CDs at a nice level of performance. Of all the DVD players I auditioned the NAD unit had the best CD sound so I picked one up. I also got some nice analog interconnects to go along with the digital coax cable since the DAC in the NAD was better than in my Marantz receiver, it is obvious when you A/B them in the middle of a song that the NAD does a tremendous job of converting the signal to analog. I am very pleased with the audio CD performance of this unit and for that reason it will spend time in my rack of components.

I am using the coax digital out for movies. Theoretically the NAD should sound the same as the Proscan I just removed from the system since a digital out is a digital out and nothing is done with the signal but for some reason the NAD still sounds little better. It seems as if the sound blends between the speakers more smoothly and it has a warmer and more full sound now. With this player I had the opportunity to use both coax and optical outs into my receiver and I could switch them on the fly during a movie. Both are high quality cables. The Coax digital is just a tiny bit better sounding, the optical out has just the teeniest bit of artificial brightness but you would never know unless you listened to them side by side like I did.

The picture is good but not something that makes your jaw drop. I really expected more from an $800 DVD player with the picture but I think now that the $250 Proscan I had just put out an excellent picture and the NAD is merely its equal. It is a good picture though, I am just surprised that it wasn't better. If you want a good picture on a budget then look at the Proscan models, they are very good here.

The remote is just plane silly. I won't even go into it but it is basically unsuable. This doesn't bother me though since my Harman Kardon Take Control remote can learn a new one very quickly and I had this fixed up in less than ten minutes.

I love the looks of this unit too. NAD makes serious looking, no nonsense seeming equipment and I like that. It most definitely does not look Japanese.

I am going to give this a perfect score for the only reason that I am thrilled at the sound quality accross the board and this unit filled exactly what I was looking for. The Proscan I was using did not make me excited to listen to music but now I can't wait to pop in a music CD.

System:
Polk RMDS1 system.
Includes;
4 sats
1 center chanel
1 10" sub
500 watt receiver. (Made by Marantz.)
Hitachi 53" TV
Mitsubishi S-Video VCR

Similar Products Used:

Proscan DVD, Fisher DVD

Audio Playback with both stereo and DTS CD's, excellent DVD audio

Remote design/layout, occasional drop out during DVD playback

I hope to own this product for a long time to come. My usual MO is to purchase no-frills products that offers alot for the $ without the need to spend extra for features I might not use, or hear. The NAD T550 fits in nicely with my Parasound AVC 1800 and my Acurus 200X3 and A250 amps. Propperly isolated, I"ve not heard many CD players that would rival the playback ability of the T550. DVD playback to date has been nearly flawless, only occasional droputs od the signal during playback.

Similar Products Used:

None, this is my first DVD player

Remote, Initial system software, slow response/access time

I wish I had heeded the old adage that is always applied to the new automobiles: "Never buy the first model year, let someone else bear the teething problems!"

That being said, I have been consistently impressed with the CD capabilities of the unit. The playback is stunning; uniformly transparent and revealing. My only complaint on the CD is that the unit is extremely slow to respond to command (either via remote or directly from the panel) to open, close, skip tracks, etc.

The DVD player hasn't been as smashing. While the reproduction quality is quite good and the picture very sharp and well defined, operation has been a bit glitchy.

A large part of my issues (picture freezing unexpected, lack of synching of the audio and video,difficulty to get the movie to engage) were resolved with a software upgrade (that I had to request after reading a review in Stereophile's Guide to Home Theater that referenced the same problem). Subsequently, I've still had a few issues when moving from a movie to menu and then trying to resume playback at the point I left the movie. Fortunately most of my use is for music, otherwise I'd have been more frustrated.

Ah...the remote... this a more disappointing matter. Suffice to say NAD's reputation for clean lines and well organized displays is true for the player, but doesn't carry over to the remote. It's surprising that their user testings didn't reveal/address its issues. Specifically with the exception of the power and the enter buttons, most are indistinguishable, forcing you to check with a light to see what you want press during playback. This is generally fine when playing a CD, but typically with a movie one wants to dim the lights (and interestingly enough the power button is light when the unit is off and dark when it is one presumably not to distract the viewer when watching a film in the dark) and is using either a back-lit remote (which this one is not) or one with more distinct buttons for the key features.

Prior to this purchase all my other remotes were at worse functional, and some very well designed and organized. The NAD remote is by far the least user-friendly that we've owned. The lack of well-planned out design stands in sharp contrast to their general design approach. I'm not trying to be a design snob, but in this case function is marred by poor form.

I'd always thought highly of NAD based on friends experience and positive feedback, but as I shop for a new pre-amp and amp I've moved them down on the list.

As I've mentioned earlier if you are more focused on musical reproduction than home theater and are patient for a slow transport, the CD side won't disappoint you; just be forewarned about the DVD issues and the remote.

Similar Products Used:

DVD: none, CD: Cal Icon, Yamaha CDC 605

Good clean looks.

Remote control
Inability to play CD-R
Buggy software

First off, no complaints about the sound and image quality. I noticed some jaggies on a DVD or two, but since I haven't directly compared it to other DVD players, I'll attribute it to the source material, maybe aggravated by anamorphic downconversion (if that is the right term?).

Regarding the stuff that really gets to me, I don't need any comparison to other products to decide that its not up the quality I expected. The remote control is poor, ie it is bulky, difficult to use and has a very limited range. The tray on the T550 is extremely flimsy and seems loose.
It doesn't play CD-R discs (I have a few audio CD-Rs, compilations of stuff that I have on CD that I mainly use in my car, which I occasionally also would like to use at home), although it seems to work with CD-RW.

At the moment the most irritating feature is the buggy firm/software. After watching a few DVDs, I noticed glitches in the audio, which I first attributed to layer changes. Except that I don't expect to have 4 or 5 layer changes on single layer discs ... Sometimes when pausing
a DVD, it just hangs; sometimes I am unable to get any
response from the player, sometimes the video continues but with no audio. Being an experienced Windows user I know that a hard reboot does the trick. At least the software can be upgraded (I hope).

The player also seems sluggish. When playing audio CDs, I'd like to sit back and switch between tracks, but it seems to take 5 seconds to skip to the next track. Combine this with a less than adequate remote control and you have an extremely frustrating experience. At this point the sound
quality is not what I am admiring about the T550...

Lastly I bought it locally under the impression that it would be zone/region free. Not sure it there are any legal implications, but all I know is that there are some decent DVDs in the Criterion collection that is only available in region 1 that I would have liked to be able to use in the T550 (here in zone 2). But I guess I should have determined whether it really is region free before I purchased it, I guess.

Similar Products Used:

-

good cd-player nice picture ,nice sound with movies

slow!! at all things forward rewind on cd-tracks horrible

This DVD-player have never failed to play a DVD. I never had prob. with it. The prob. comes when you put in a CD or DVD it takes about 20-15 sec. before it can play it, very bad.
It also clicks in the sound when you play movies that change
audio format. The player is very slow at everything. You can
forget about searching in CD-tracks ;( I also hate to change
region code with it, It's a lot of work. If you have a lot of time, and looking for a player that have great sound and picture, it might be the player for you :)
For me the player is a litte outdated. That's why I sold it
and bought the best panasonic DVD-player =)

Similar Products Used:

panasonic rv-60