CD sound quality

Thanks again for your comments. Sean, I entirely agree with you. I am willing to use tone and balance controls to get the sound I want, if its possible. But my main purpose was to describe how the sound is defficient and what seemed to correct it in order to identify what problem I am experiencing.

Rrcpa, those are good troubleshooting suggestions and, once I get a window when my wife isnt around (complaining about hearing the same tracks over and over) I will definitely check that out.

Are we putting NAD quality control into question?! I thought that's part of what you pay for! Anyway, i've got a 2 year warranty on that sucker and they're getting it back if the AUX channels sound better.

Hi everyone,

There is definitely a problem with the cabling. My Wharfedale's have bi-wiring hookups. I left the metal connector for the two sets of terminals on the speakers thinking I could connect the cables just to one set. Logically, this would be fine. But, I moved the cable hookup from the bottom pair to the top pair and now only have treble from that speaker! the (brass?) connecting plate is still in place.

Do I need to send these speakers back to have their innards checked out?

Thanks

Thanks everyone for these very helpful comments.

Let me be more specific about the sound quality. Specific instruments/voices almost sound as if they are in another room. The sound is never totally muted; that would be a setup problem or device failure/defective hardware. Itzak Perlman’s violin is missing treble. Removing the bypass and turning up treble all the way helps the instrument sound more normal. Of course, its preferable to keep the bypass and the music engineer’s balancing. I did a similar test with a Metallica CD and bass also seemed too distant. Turning up the bass helped a little but quickly muddied the sound of course…

The tuner actually sounds good, though since I have no control over radio broadcasts I cant specifically compare and re-listen to specific sections of music. This cuts out any problem with the CD player and I assume sound quality should be high with the tuner since the only loss of sound quality would be with speaker cables (Oehlbach – 4mm(?))

Could the combination NAD/Wharfedale be less favorable for certain types of music?

I have the most basic cables to connect the Amp/CD player. Before spending $500 on a new CD player, perhaps a small investment in those connecting cables could make a difference?

Cheers