That’s the exact opposite of my experience. Just further illustrates the fact that audio is very subjective.
I’ve read on forums recently that a few people have trialled the NAD C399 and found it cold, clinical and lacking in any emotion and have returned it. Is the M33 hugely different from the C399 sound signature wise?
Room Perfect works wonders in my listening room which is at the end of my garden, it has plaster board inner walls and a suspended floor. Its 4.3m x 3.8m. It’s well Furnished and all sources and speakers are isolated. I spent months fiddling with speaker positioning etc and am now in a place where I’m happy with the sound.
You do love to bash the Lyngdorf and RP and do so on many forums and given every opportunity
but at least you’ve tried/listened to it. Many ‘definitive’ opinions on forums are pure theory offered by people who haven’t listen to the kit they’re discussing.
Hi Andy – I think we all have our own prejudices in favour of the equipment we’ve spent our hard-earned cash on buying, but when it comes to buying replacement kit, we should do plenty of open-minded research and to home trial several examples from a short list.
I’d been using valve SETs to power my horn speakers since soon after buying them in 2002. I decided to move to ss for a number of reasons, not least because I had concluded I’d listen to far more music without concerns about valve life, power consumption, etc. On reflection this has proved correct and I have no desire to return to valves.
After asking opinions on forums, visiting shows and online research, I drew up a short list of amps to try out in my system. This list was added to over time and overall I home tested a dozen amps that I thought may offer the sound I was looking for. Although the Lyngdorf was not on my initial list, several favourable mentions were made of it (mostly on AV Forums) so I borrowed the 3400 as its price and spec was in line with my plans.
I’d be happy to send you by PM my list of amps tested with one-line comments on their performance or suitability. As I mentioned earlier, I found the Lyngdorf very good on paper and pretty good sounding, but its front panel display was poor (comparable to a dot-matrix printer when put against a high res full colour LED screen on some of its rivals) and RoomPerfect sucked so much life from the music it condemned the Lyngdorf as far as I was concerned.
My comments here and on other forums about the Lyngdorf are always prompted by a reference to this brand from others where as often or not, opinions are invited. I’ve only ever stated my own rather limited experience and my reasons for rejecting this unit. Others may well have differing opinions, though I always suggest that anyone thinking of purchasing a Lyngdorf (or for that matter any other amp within the price brackets) should do themselves a favour and try other amps at home to compare it with. As I eventually chose a NAD Master Series amp, I suggest others looking for a good amp to include a NAD M series amp in their auditioning plans.
You mention the C399. I have no experience of that unit, but it comes within NAD’s C range that is not a match for their top line M range – it’s about half the price, so you wouldn’t expect it to. It doesn’t use Purifi Eigentakt technology, so clearly not comparable. The M33 certainly can’t be described as “cold, clinical and lacking in any emotion”, far from it. For a unit to be awarded Stereophile’s 2020 Amp of the Year, Component of the Year and joint Editor’s Choice, the M33 surely should be considered a worthwhile product and probably superior to its rivals.
I hope this explains why I contribute to conversations where I see Lyngdorf mentioned. I have nothing against the brand (it sounded far better than some others I tried), but I found it much better without its built-in room correction - as I’ve also found to a lesser extent with the room correction DSPs built into other amps I tried – NAD and Micromega. I’ve tried to explain why I believe all these processor do no favours to the excitement factor of reproduced music, despite flattening out the bass where room acoustics may cause difficulties. I also believe that other means should normally achieve good results without DSP, although those who choose speakers that need sub-woofer support make life much more difficult for themselves. A good floor-stander with large(ish) bass drivers should be easier to set up properly without resort to RC processors. It could be that in your garden room with 4 speakers needing to be set up, a DSP is the obvious solution.
Peter