I own an Audio Research Ref CD7 and it has no trouble playing CD-Rs. I also have a CAL Delta transport that plays my CD-Rs. My old Theda Jade played CD-Rs. I would think that almost all CD players and transports made in the last 10 years play CD-Rs. I think that your NAD not playing CD-Rs is a bit unusual. My CAL transport has to be 15 years old.
How are you burning your CD-Rs, is you program burning them to be red book compatible? I use EAC and in the past have used Feurio!. I have not had a problem with CD-Rs burned by either program.