This is my new baby! The NAD T 757 A/V Surround Sound Receiver:

I was looking to update my old Sony STR-DA50ES receiver, as I wanted to tidy up the connections between my devices and the 50ES doesn’t have any HDMI ports. However, the 50ES worked really well with my 4-ohm speakers, so I needed an amp that was capable of driving those (otherwise it would’ve been a very expensive update). Carlton Audio Visual recommended the NAD, and I have to say I’m very happy with it.

This amp has almost no bells or whistles at all. It’s $1500 of pure audio goodness. No streaming audio, no built in iPod integration or anything like that. All I have connected to it is my five speakers, my sub, a Blu-ray player, an Xbox 360 and a CD player (which I never use but figured I’d connect just in case).

One trick for other 757 owners in case you see a similar problem: When you connect the 360 and start navigating around the dashboard, you may notice that the sound drops out every once in a while. I’m not sure why this happens, but it may be something specific to my old “elite” model 360 and not be a problem on the newer models. Regardless, the fix was to go to the 360’s digital audio output setting and set it to “Dolby Digital with WMA Pro”. Once I had done that, the sound behaved perfectly.

Might update this post once I’ve had a chance to play a few Blu-ray movies through it and really give it a good run.

Update!

So it turns out that the Xbox 360's digital audio output setting really wasn't to blame for the audio dropouts. After some experimentation I think the problem only occurs when the Xbox is turned on before the receiver. I've heard of ordering issues like this with HDMI but had never seen it before.

Also, we've watched a few movies with the new receiver and I have to say I'm thrilled. The sound is rich and deep, but also very clear. Really immersive. I would totally recommend this receiver to anyone who's after something with not too many bells and whistles but with great sound.