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NAD M50/M51/M52


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Hi

 

is anybody running this combo M50/M51/M52 

 

I like the idea of a streaming solution that does not actually use a computer for storage.

 

 

 

 

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Edited by LFD
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No not running this gear but had extensive experience with the last stage being the m51....

If one was prepared to rip all your CDs to flac as per the m52 then I can only suggest the results would be worthwhile.

The only paranoia is the life of the hdd in that component.

Backup is your friend.

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I have heard the trio and do a decent enough job...but seemed like a lot of boxes ..that costs a fair stack...and seems a fair bit to invest in what seems continuously evolving technology base ?

 

nice bits of gear though. so yeah if hits the spot why not :)

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Agree with LC there.  I've heard the M50+M51+M52 dac combo.  Stunning.  However..this is where i insert the caveat..the M52 is very expensive option to store all your flac/wav files etc on.  It would be much cheaper to store all your rips via:

- NAS drive

- USB thumb drive

- USB drive

 

Also the M52 uses WD Green drives, which had a reputation of failing.  You're better off getting a NAS drive configured to Raid-5 (same as the M52) using WD Reds that are tested to run 24/7 as proper NAS drives.

 

I have all my music stored on a Synology NAS, and the same backed up files copied across to my USB thumb drive, which I use for replay on the M50.  The m50 has a front usb port that easily reads the thumb drive.  You can use a usb drive to connect at the rear of the M50 and have that formatted to run like the M52.

Edited by katattack74
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I still dont get the use of nas drives for music. you can get silly amounts of music on a 500gb usb drive eg 4000 flacs. usb drives are so cheap now too.. why bother with a nas ?

 

my sony synchs to the my music that sits on a laptop - thats backed up automatically with a time machine so really no need for nas drives and such for me. and my ready nas now days just sits switched off literally collecting dust. noisey things in any case. if I could I wouldnt involve a nas ! 

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I'm running the M50/M51. Just bought them actually only had them a couple days. I opted to not get the M52 as I have all my music on my PC storage drives which are backed up. I'm temporarily using an external HDD and although it seems the M50 is particular about how you name and arrange folders (I'm going to do some experimenting tomorrow with this actually) I can easily have all my music on a single drive connected to the rear USB and access it as a library rather than streaming. However if there's content not yet on the local HDD but on my PC, I can still play it as long as the PC is on (streaming).

 

I haven't researched enough to see if this will work perfectly but I am looking at buying one of these and two of these and making my own little RAID 1 array for local storage for the M50. I just need to establish if it will be recognized by the M50, if it will indicate when a drive fails and auto-rebuild the array upon insertion of a replacement drive, if it will auto power down when it's no longer being accessed and go into 'sleep mode' to save the drives and reduce power consumption and if it will auto-wake from sleep. If so, that'll be my $237 storage solution.

 

If it won't sleep or wake, I might just relocate the power switch to avoid reaching around the back of the unit. So long as the M50 can see it (and I see no reason why it wouldn't) then it should work fine and be quite aesthetically pleasing.

Edited by CryptiK
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Hey Cryptik - Congratulations on the purchase of the M50/M51 combo. There's a quite a few reviews online which point to it being quite a step up from a pure PC into DAC streaming setup, or indeed something like PChan's Oppo into M51 via SPDIF, as always I'd been on keen on getting that validated a touch closer to home rather than via a review which is hosted on a manufacturers website.

 

Could I ask what you were running before this current front end? Did you have the M51 taking the signal from an altogether different source before purchasing the M50 or did you buy both at the same time?

 

Not sure if you want to divulge how much you bought the combo for, as I've seen a post on here which suggests the M50 was picked up by an SN'R for <$2K which seems like an amazing price for what you get.

 

Lastly, regardless of whether you bought both units at the same time, or one before the other do indulge and let us know what it sounds like! (Stunning I'm sure!) :)

 

No doubt you've read this thread/review: very interesting food for thought!

 

http://www.avforums.com/threads/my-streamer-shoot-out-nad-m50-the-winner.1799465/

Edited by Galactic Soap
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I still dont get the use of nas drives for music. you can get silly amounts of music on a 500gb usb drive eg 4000 flacs. usb drives are so cheap now too.. why bother with a nas ?

 

my sony synchs to the my music that sits on a laptop - thats backed up automatically with a time machine so really no need for nas drives and such for me. and my ready nas now days just sits switched off literally collecting dust. noisey things in any case. if I could I wouldnt involve a nas ! 

The NAS makes your files available across the network to multiple devices so you can have music around the house.

The NAS can deal will a single drive failure and keep working, then its just plug and play to add a replacement drive.

The NAS can be place well out of ear shot so no noisy disks with RF in the music room

 

More importantly some of have collections that won't fit onto a single drive.

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Thanks Galactic. I am really impressed with both units they're exactly what I wanted. I was skeptical about both, and even with a few positive reviews of the M50 I was a bit taken aback by the apparent lack of use among forums. Everyone seems to go for either hard media (CD's, Vinyl, Tapes etc) or full streamers with NAS. When I get absorbed in music listening, it becomes a bit of a tangential journey where I'll change moods and think of things I want to listen to and getting up, looking for and loading a CD pulls me out of that 'zone'.

 

I had a quick demo of Marc's streamer (really excellent setup) and was hooked on the concept of having your whole library at your fingertips, but not having the room for a NAS (or the need for one if I'm honest with myself) and was wary of streaming high res files over wifi (potential for dropouts - depends how the data stream is buffered which is gear/AP specific as Marc's writeup of his system shows). I wanted a hybrid system playing from locally connected HDD storage mostly but with streaming capability for certain other situations. Enter the NAD M50.

 

My previous CD Player was the NAD C565BEE which was excellent for the money and I was happy with it since purchase. As I said in that thread, that CDP changed my mind on NAD from gear one would buy as their first foray into audiophiledom using it as a platform from which to upgrade further into esoterica, to gear that was right at home with some high end stuff. 

 

As a result of never having owned a stand-alone DAC, I bought the M50 and M51 together from Addicted to Audio. Being a regular customer of theirs it wouldn't be fair to divulge what I paid but true to form (regular or not) they will do their best to come in ahead of everyone else. I also bought an AES/EBU cable and a nice pair of XLR's to link the M50 to the M51 and M51 to the Preamp respectively, and walked out very happy.

 

The sound - I'll level right now I do not possess the vocabulary of the audio reviewer, and I'll refrain from nebulous descriptions of lifting veils and liquid mids reminiscent of valves, but my whole setup just works really well and sounds fantastic. The guys in the M51 thread swear the sound changes with some hours on the unit, but now a couple of days in (I have not left it on, it can do it's thing while I'm listening to it) it's sounding really nice and transparent. I want to know what the real source sounds like and I like detail, I'm not one who enjoys colour or smoothed over/polite sounding stuff - the M51 suits me well. The M50 holds it's own spinning discs as well (it's a transport with no internal DAC).

 

I have a couple of issues with the iOS app but mostly it's very good. My biggest gripe is not being able to remove single tracks from a playlist. I've emailed NAD about this already, hopefully they sort that out but it's smooth and glitch free so far. I wish that the remotes for the M50 and M51 were different - they are identical so you're forever picking up the wrong one. A little remote for the couple of functions the M51 has would be far better leaving the larger remote festooned with buttons for the M50. Little things, though, and I can get over it. 

 

Overall - very impressed, no regrets. My fiancee loves it, she loves music and good quality sound but hates the process of CD's and media so this is perfect for her- the FAF is strong with this one. In fact she was most horrified at what I paid for the cables. Bastards at A2A cut me some great deals and I'd have been mad not to take them up...

 

TL;DR - super happy with it, go demo one.

Edited by CryptiK
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There's a trick to it (IE: read the manual) but there's nothing hard about transferring all your music to the local HDD connected to the rear USB port. All my music is now accessible locally from the external drive.

 

Everyone loves pics:

 

13490560965_5d2a19cfaa_c.jpg

Edited by CryptiK
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Ok the iOS app now has the ability to delete individual tracks from the playlist. just in case anyone is in doubt, you can simply connect an external HDD or USB drive to the rear USB port and use this as your storage. You can rip to it and play from it just like the M52 - if you have a well backed up music collection a cheaper HDD solution with no redundancy is an ideal solution for this unit. It's pretty much the most perfect (for me) player I've come across, completely happy with it :)

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No idea about working with other 3rd party apps, but I believe it does not work with uPnP as how this player works is indexing a drive or shared location you point it to and using this index rather than relying on the source to do it for you (or not).

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HI all,

 

does the M50 need a DAC or will it play on it's own from the storage?  I see the cd slot uploads to RAM then i assume plays, will it also just play flacs from a storage device?  Does it have it's own DAC?  or is the additional M51 just a DAC upgrade on the M50?

 

I have read the web site but stil cannot figure that out

 

Sorry if that is a stupid q - new at computer audio.

 

Oh and if yes was the M50 any good on it's own?

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I still dont get the use of nas drives for music. you can get silly amounts of music on a 500gb usb drive eg 4000 flacs. usb drives are so cheap now too.. why bother with a nas ?

 

my sony synchs to the my music that sits on a laptop - thats backed up automatically with a time machine so really no need for nas drives and such for me. and my ready nas now days just sits switched off literally collecting dust. noisey things in any case. if I could I wouldnt involve a nas ! 

 

Data protection and redundancy so if a drive fails on a NAS you do not loose any of your precious files.

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Data protection and redundancy so if a drive fails on a NAS you do not loose any of your precious files.

 

a small time machine drive does that for me. dont need a big noisy nas for that :)

 

nas drives in my opinion when comes to media are really necessary if talking video ie blu-ray iso's and the like that take up 50GB a film...now your talking serious space demands for a collection. but even here thats somethign walked away from. have a few regularly played films particularly ones played by the kids as iso's on the dunehd and rest via airplay and appletv. so nas drive now sits idle collecting dust...

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HI all,

 

does the M50 need a DAC or will it play on it's own from the storage?  I see the cd slot uploads to RAM then i assume plays, will it also just play flacs from a storage device?  Does it have it's own DAC?  or is the additional M51 just a DAC upgrade on the M50?

 

I have read the web site but stil cannot figure that out

 

Sorry if that is a stupid q - new at computer audio.

 

Oh and if yes was the M50 any good on it's own?

 

The M50's just a CD transport, server and streamer. It only has digital outputs as it does not have an internal DAC. You do need to run it into a DAC.

 

 

Data protection and redundancy so if a drive fails on a NAS you do not loose any of your precious files.

 

Some people like myself already have this (mirrored drives for data storage) on our PC setups, and have no need for the kind of additional redundancy or data volume provided by separate NAS. If you do great, use some for music too, but for those that have their digital music libraries backed up already a single drive for their music server is absolutely fine. I tried streaming, and it's OK, but I much prefer the local HDD connected to the M50 directly for convenience.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The NAS makes your files available across the network to multiple devices so you can have music around the house.

The NAS can deal will a single drive failure and keep working, then its just plug and play to add a replacement drive.

The NAS can be place well out of ear shot so no noisy disks with RF in the music room

More importantly some of have collections that won't fit onto a single drive.

Hehe - won't fit on a single drive... I just bought a 4TB drive.

Can I keep all your music if I can get it to fit on one 4TB drive? ;)

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