I want to really thank everyone who has responded. I appreciate your advice.
I spent several hours tonight doing some careful listening and comparison. I now think that several factors conspired to show the NAD in its worst light.
At least one of the tracks I was using last night to test was *not* Apple lossless, it was a 256 kbps MP3. (Now I know that I really can hear the difference--its not just my imagination.) Even for the lossless files, I used the optical output from an Airport Express instead the optical out directly from the Mac Mini. Apple claims that the output of Airtunes and the Airport Express is bit-perfect, but Im not so sure. Its subtle, but I suspect that iTunes 8 and Airtunes may have some problems with network latency and buffer sizes. I tried two airport units, so its probably not my hardware. Tonight I used CD as the source for everything.
I spent some time using my AKG K701 headphones, switching between the NADs headphone port and my X-Can v3. While the X-Can is clearly better, the performance of the NAD is not so far off as the Infinity 150s led me to believe. If the headphone output of the NAD is a accurate indication of what it could do with better speakers (and its a reasonable indicator as far as I understand) then I can live with this amp.
So, I took the day off work tomorrow, and Im going to listen to some B&Ws, Monitor Audios, Totems, and Magnepans. The Magnepan dealer said I could take home his demo MMGs to try with my gear. Are any of the sub-$1000 models of these brands going to get me close the the AKG phones?
Im still curious about the A-9555. At some point in the future, I may break-down and order one. Now I can in good conscience push that speaker budget closer to the $1000 mark. That should be a good thing, even if I decide to change amps in the future.
Thanks.
I spent several hours tonight doing some careful listening and comparison. I now think that several factors conspired to show the NAD in its worst light.
At least one of the tracks I was using last night to test was *not* Apple lossless, it was a 256 kbps MP3. (Now I know that I really can hear the difference--its not just my imagination.) Even for the lossless files, I used the optical output from an Airport Express instead the optical out directly from the Mac Mini. Apple claims that the output of Airtunes and the Airport Express is bit-perfect, but Im not so sure. Its subtle, but I suspect that iTunes 8 and Airtunes may have some problems with network latency and buffer sizes. I tried two airport units, so its probably not my hardware. Tonight I used CD as the source for everything.
I spent some time using my AKG K701 headphones, switching between the NADs headphone port and my X-Can v3. While the X-Can is clearly better, the performance of the NAD is not so far off as the Infinity 150s led me to believe. If the headphone output of the NAD is a accurate indication of what it could do with better speakers (and its a reasonable indicator as far as I understand) then I can live with this amp.
So, I took the day off work tomorrow, and Im going to listen to some B&Ws, Monitor Audios, Totems, and Magnepans. The Magnepan dealer said I could take home his demo MMGs to try with my gear. Are any of the sub-$1000 models of these brands going to get me close the the AKG phones?
Im still curious about the A-9555. At some point in the future, I may break-down and order one. Now I can in good conscience push that speaker budget closer to the $1000 mark. That should be a good thing, even if I decide to change amps in the future.
Thanks.