NAD

In our last issue, we reported on the introduction of the NAD T587, the first high-end, Blu-ray player from one of our manufacturers. Now NAD has achieved another landmark, the introduction of two new, lower-priced models while most audiophile companies still haven't introduced their first player. These two new models are the T557 at $599 and the T577 at $999.

We would like to recap a very important point we made in our last issue. Just as we have been preaching for years, sound quality in CD players and sound and video quality in DVD players does matter a whole heck of a lot, and not all players are created even remotely equal in these areas. So, why should things be different for Blu-ray players? The obvious answer is that they most certainly are not. For some inexplicable reason, many audiophiles and videophiles who wouldn't have been caught dead buying a mass market CD or DVD player, just because it was cheaper, have forgotten this important tenet when buying a Blu-ray player . Perhaps it was because there simply weren't any high-end alternatives before the NAD players.

Well, now there are two even more affordable alternatives. Both models are cutting edge in terms of the video and audio quality they output and are far ahead of the mass market offerings. Performance differs little between the T557 and T577, but the T577 has additional features many users will find useful such as the ability to stream its video output into a home network and a complete, 8-channel set of analog outputs for those who wish to send ultimate NAD analog sound out to receivers and processors which don't have digital-to-Analog conversion as good as what's available internally in the T577. We hope there will be more high-end Blu-ray players in the future, but, right now, these are the ones to own.