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Part 1 – Preface I’m guessing that I’m either the first or one of the very few in Australia to have the NAD MDC DD-BluOS Module for the C 390DD Direct Digital Powered DAC Amplifier [and M12]. This is a digital streaming board/module that easily slots into the rear of the amp. This was release 24 Feb in Australia and David at Caxton Audio go this in for me as week or so later. I sold all my vinyl and turntable around 2005 and a few years later started experimenting with computer audio. Since then I’ve been through Squeezebox’s [3], netbooks, notebooks, full PC’s, CAPS2 PC, BeagleBone Blacks [3] and currently Celeron NUC’s [2 – stripped bare]. Most of these fed into [recently] Metrum Octave Dac, Stello U3 usb converter into Ming Da pre amp and mono power amps and a plethora of interconnects. When the NAD C390DD came out it caught my fancy as a way to stop [nay restrict] the ever urge to tweak this, change that, component/cable etc – I was just getting fed up of so many bits/units. So this got reduced to NUC – Listener’s excellent Darkside usb cable - Empirical Offramp 4 [recent 2nd hand buy – here] – Blue Jeans digital cable – C390DD. Was this a further step to audio nirvana – no, more of a sideways step. But heaps less boxes and cablesJ. Almost as soon as I got the C390DD, the thought occurred to me why doesn’t NAD simply put a computer on a board and we can do everything from one box – perhaps they heard me – who knows – so the review … Oh, I haven’t said why I’m writing this – basically there’s “B***er†all on the web about this board – so this is my 10 penny worth. Conclusion See the next post for the details [if you’re interested], I’ll cut to the chase. Cost; well at full retail circa $850 [don’t expect to pay this!] its way too expensive if you already have a good source –CD turntable, cd payer or PC etc. The other modules for this amp cost $300 and that or a little more would be a good price. I don’t think NAD sold a lot of C390DD’s into Australia so at almost 3 times the reasonable cost I don’t think NAD will sell many of these modules. Sound; is the BluOS module better sounding than my PC setup – NO! – why because I was running a bare NUC and Linux and basically this is what the module is. In fact the NAD [or Bluesond] iPad app looks very much like mPad which I used to control my Beaglebone/Linux/MPD setup. In my heart of hearts I was hoping for a little improvement through the removal of units and cables – hum. So does it sound worse – luckily no; it’s very similar and produces a very good sound overall. Would this kill an Aurender S10 music server and Devialet 250 – not in a month of Sunday’s but at 8X+ the price of the NAD – hey get real. So the BluOS module sound detailed and precise, voices sound very natural and so do piano’s etc. I think there might be a little more bass but perhaps a little less controlled that my PC setup. Overall the sound is good enough to get you involved with the album and not make you want to flick to another track to see if that sounds good! Initially, I thought that my NUC/Offramp might have had the edge in detail/control but I was surprised that when I got the inputs sorted [see later] a straight A/B comparison showed little discernible difference. Considering this combo including separate power supplies and cables cost circa $2,000, perhaps the MDC board is good value? Is it a keeper!: well when I change to the C390DD I lost a tad bit of the fantastic sound stage I was getting from my valve setup but I’m talking very small losses but the gain in box/cable reduction was huge and I was still getting a great sound [for the money]. It’s exactly the same with this module minor changes but basically parity sound but now I’ve got what I wanted - an old fashion one-box music centre … One box of electronics, speakers [plus subs] and cables producing great sound – oooh the space. If I was only married again I’d be buried under a heap of WAF So my answer is yes it’s a keeper because it’s more a LIFESTYLE change rather than a chase for the ultimate audio nirvana for me. If the retailers could package the C390DD and this module for circa $3,000 I think it would make a great high quality one box solution … are you listening NAD.