Nad M33 or something better

Hegel gets a lot of love here these days but it’s far from the only fish in the sea and not without its own unique flaws, at least in some cases from what I read, mainly with the digital implementation and overall comparative value.

If you do some homework the m33 looks very good in both regards. I have auditioned m33 and my findings to date are consistent with what I read.

I was going to go with an m33 about 2 years ago but ended up trying a Cambridge Evo 150 first, which saved me a nice chunk of change. The m33 would still be a reasonable step up in terms of overall drive capability but I decided I didn’t need the room correction capabilities at this time and the Cambridge offered usb input out of the can which I needed at the time and came in for $2.5K less.

+1 to the add sub consensus 

Great comments guys.

Thanks for all the input..

That is a nice set of speakers! I have the LS50's and love the sound of them, I am guessing the Ref 3's are spectacular. Having gone through some upgrades in amplification with my KEF's, I would say that you could find some significant improvements trying some other gear. My original amp was an NAD 375BEE integrated which sounded great and provided a deep well of power for the low sensitivity LS50's. My eyes opened up when I bypassed the preamp section of the NAD integrated with a Schiit Freya+, it was a significant improvement. I later replaced the amplifier with a Coda #8, again a very significant improvement.

I am not advocating for these products, and in fact I am in the process of auditioning replacements for the Freya, but just saying that I think you can do better with a speaker of that quality. The M33 looks great on paper, but like every Swiss army knife solution, I expect there were compromises made along the way. The fact that you are not getting the bass you want, and you are still missing that certain something tells me you should shop around.