NAD M23 Stereo Amplifier: Best Amp Ever Bench Tested?!?

Hey @kuribo, D.B. You really have a great opportunity to show off your technical prowess and your electrical engineering expertise, by designing and building your own 6 channel amplifier. You can use your precious Bruno’s Purfi modules.

Bet you miss that old B&O system.

I am between amps at the moment, shopping for 6 channels for an active 3 way system. I have owned a lot of amps over the years.

I’ve heard the m33 twice at the same dealer in very informal demos. First time was horrible. Something was off. Either not working right or That device has powerful digital processing capabilities that can be used or abused.

Second time……more like it! Sounded good much as expected.

Moral of the story: One sample of anything does not necessarily tell the story.

There is no way a popular amp from a established reputable company that measures that good does a bad job. Whether one likes the sound or not is a different story. Another amp I would like to hear.  Any amp has to be paired with the right speakers to deliver the goods.  What the “goods” are is a very personal thing.  
 

It’s valid to listen to something and say you didn’t like what you heard but that alone does not make it “junk”.    There are lots of fine wines and cigars that some people dislike immensely  

Well I have had 3 and all stunk….junk.

Do have an old NAD 3020 that sounds good, not great use it at the fish camp at the Port. 

@mapman 

It’s valid to listen to something and say you didn’t like what you heard but that alone does not make it “junk”.

One needs to consider the source, as it were, and discount accordingly.

We all screen/filter our purchases, be it by cost, class, power, etc. because we can’t listen to every product on the market. Objective performance is just one possible filter

Correct, but most of us use objective performance as only one filter among many rather than using it as THE ABSOLUTE first filter.  Then, we’re also able to glean that if the vast majority of reviewers and customers say that something exhibits the sound qualities we’re looking for it’s also worth exploring even if it might not ace everything on our spec sheet wishes.  It’s just not that black and white in audio despite how much you might like it to be because there are lots of gray areas and intangibles that measurements don’t capture but that your ears might, and you’re completely closing yourself to many promising products just because they don’t hit a number on your wishlist.  As much as audio is a science it’s also an art, and the art is how the equipment ultimately matches with our tastes and unique hearing abilities that IMO cannot all be measured but must be experienced.  If you close yourself off to options because of numbers you may very well miss the art, which can make all the difference.  To me, use numbers but not exclusively — that’s how I do it.