Not your Father's NAD: Masters M66 review

This episode is brought to you by Munich High-End 2024:

🎥 Camera: John Darko / Olaf von Voss
🎬 Editor: John Darko
🌈 Colour: Olaf von Voss
🕺🏻 Motion GFX: John Darko
💰 Ad segment: Jana Dagdagan

0:00 Into
1:28 Some basics
2:17 Analogue Direct
3:54 Analogue pre-amp comparison
5:59 Phono stage comparison
6:23 DAC talk
10:22 DAC comparison
12:16 Headphone comparison
13:33 Dirac Live Bass Control ON & OFF
21:10 Amplifier comparison

👉 As seen in this video...

NAD Masters M66

NAD Masters M23

PSB BP-8

Dirac Live Bass Control

Where am I at with room reverb in 2024?

KEF R3 Meta

Pro-Ject RS2 T CD transport

Hegel H590

PS Audio BHK Signature pre-amplifier

Cables and power products by AudioQuest

Hi-fi furniture and speaker stands by Solid Steel

Room treatment by Vicoustic

Darko.Audio may earn a small commission from items purchased via affiliate links, which are indicated with a '🛒'.

#NAD #hifi #highend

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[uglybob]

Great video, thanks for sharing 🙂 and I REALLY hope its N.A.D 🙂

[DrewSchinechedi]

I appreciate that your channel isn’t cheap clickbait. It’s a breath of fresh air. Thank you.

[cbayardelle]

Love you’re channel, I’m 73 & I mostly listen to jazz, rock from my youth. You mentioned electronic music & a band called Monolake, I’ve been listening to silence. I’m using elac ub5, I think they came out in 2016. The image & soundstage from the speakers are amazing
One of the tracks on silence called avalanche was a total 3D experience, many tracks on the Monolake are mind blowing thanks for turning me on to electronic music, also alva noto
hybr:I’d ll ectopia environment is also a 3D experience.

[Tsxtasy]

The M10 was my first hifi purchase. I really liked it at first.

Then it broke. Reached out to NAD support, and they did nothing to help. I’m not allowed to repair it myself, and replacement parts are insanely expensive. I had to ship it to a shop 1200 miles away. Then waited 9 months for the repair because of parts shortages. In that time I got to demo a lot of other equipment and realized the M10 doesn’t really sound that good.

Ended up replacing it with a separates system and will never buy another NAD product again. Their support department did literally nothing and wouldn’t give me any insight as to what could have happened on a unit so new.

[johnv]

If we say KEF instead of K.E.F, we should also say NAD.They are both acronyms of three word names.

[joecorona]

I've been selling NAD since it was NEW ACOUSTCIS DIMENSIONS so I'm going with it as an acronym. Each letter individually.

[IainWilliamson-kkhs]

I always look forward to your videos and podcasts, as well as checking the website.

Thank you for all the effort you and your team put into making them. I really appreciate it.

[adsph]

Serious high praise for the NAD combo. I’m sure it sounds very good. Thanks John.

[vagomaniac]

I was waiting for a review of this m66 good job.
For the price I expected more from the dac section.
Most audiophiles have a favourite dac and wouldn't give it up for something like this. I mean it does have a plethora of features
but audiophiles usually don't seek all in one devices.
What would shake the market would be a dedicated streamer from NAD WITH DIRAQ up to 500hz running blue os. It can be priced competitively and
if the streamer section is decent enough it will be a best seller. I say that because after using diraq for bass, mine and my friend's system, concluded that it is a must have
for untreated spaces.
There was such a device from NAD that also had preamp, dac, phono stage that were essentially unusable and only raised the price.

[ekjellgren]

Yay for Camera Conspiracies! All I want is the perfect preamp!

[calebkeen]

I believe "in-band phase alignment" means that in the relevant frequency band (40-100 hz. or so for music) the subwoofers and mains will be both time-aligned and phase-aligned. You can have a speaker/sub system that is time-aligned, but not phase-aligned, because the phase of the relevant waveform from mains and sub(s) is X degrees out of alignment with each other even though it reaches the ears at the same time. There is a great deal of debate as to whether phase alignment is audible, however, while time-alignment most definitely is due to cancellation/nulling which is most dramatically evidenced by a suck-out in the crossover region between subs and mains.

[jesperlvstadkristensen]

I say it both ways, and I have no idea why, or when I say either.

I have an older NAD M32 and I mainly use it with the newest chromecast. It wakes the amp up, when I cast to the chromecast groups in my home. A great solution. Besides that, all the tv i watch on my chromecast, automatically goes through my amp.

[DesignVisStudios]

Dirac is amazing and i wouldnt have a pre amp without it

[grommie]

Thanks for the upload!
I will try the pre amp this year in a shop.
My last amp was an NAD Silverline 200. ❤ last 12 years its active speakers for me.

[PaulC-tuci]

Terrific video John, been waiting for this

[dougg]

That See Mi Yah has some epic bass . Loved all the music . I look em up and play em as you show them. Cool

[jimgardner]

Damn outstanding video. I cannot imagine the time it takes for you to complete one of these.

BTW, your room looks fantastic! Nice job by you and the techs you had in during the early days.

[JustinSewell]

I had mine on pre-order for about 4 months but it arrived today. It’s matched with the M23, and GoldenEar Triton 1s. I can honestly say this is about as end game system I can imagine.

[parleekingy]

Thank you so much for this, I've been waiting for your review before I pull the trigger on one. I can see my current black boxes shelves cables etc saying goodbye.

NAD or N.A.D well it was sold as NAD 3020 when I bought mine back in the 80's, but who really cares... I think it was about 100quid
I couldn't afford what I wanted to drive the Linn KAN mk1 but it did a grand job for quite a few years.

[davidrudman]

Great video. Thanks for this. Further comparisons welcome 😊