Repair or replace receiver? (1 Viewer)

[ScottHM]

I have a NAD T775 receiver that's been having problems with the sound cutting out. The error I get on the display is "Check DSP Board", which I've pulled and reseated to no effect. The big problem is that this receiver is out of warranty and I'll have to pay for parts and labor, plus shipping both ways. I'm expecting a big repair bill, though I haven't talked to a service center about it yet.


On the other hand, I was in a Magnolia AV at Best Buy yesterday and saw that they have the Pioneer Elite SC-85 on sale for $899.98 and am tempted to just purchase this new rather than spend hundreds repairing an out-of-warranty receiver.


What are your opinions? Does anyone here have a Pioneer Elite SC-85 and have an opinion about it? I've been driving a pair of 4 ohm speakers with the NAD until it began failing, so I need to make sure any new receiver can handle a 4 ohm load without any problems. I haven't been running surround sound but that will change at some point.


I'd appreciate any input as I only have until tomorrow to make up my mind. I'm actually out of town right now and I'll be driving back home tomorrow, and the Best Buys in my area don't sell this model and the magnolia av web site lists this receiver at $1599.98.


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[DaveF]

I can't speak to the quality of the receivers specifically. But would the new features be of use to you? The new receiver will give you: Atmos, Airplay, Android connectivity, and some other misc internet services.

 

[ScottHM]

The network connectivity would be nice. I'm pretty happy with the feature set of the NAD, but it's already been repaired once while under warranty (for an unrelated problem), and now it has another failure that I'm afraid will be an expensive repair.


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[ScottHM]

I went back to BB today to find out more about the Pioneer Elite SC-85 and decided to give it a try. That Best Buy didn't have one in stock (except for their display model), but I'm having a new one delivered to my local BB next Friday and they cut the price another $50 for my trouble. So it's a brand new SC-85 this Friday for $849.99, and I have 14 days to decide whether I want to keep it or return it.


I'm crossing my fingers that I'll like it.


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[Dave Moritz]

Let us know how the SC-85 works out for you and I hope they have solved there reliability issues. I have a Pioneer Elite SC-05 myself that I picked up used and was told that I was better off because the 05 had a better track record as far as having less problems. The Pioneers have good sound but I would have recomended Yamaha, Denon or Marantz or maybe Onkyo because Onkyo is putting alot of bang for the buck in there gear. I also like Audyssey alot more than the Pioneer MCACC

View attachment 21197
This is my SC-05

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/AV-Receivers/Elite+Receivers/SC-85
Suggested Price: $1,600.00

Pioneer rates the amplifier at 135 Watts @ 8 Ohms at 1KHz so basically this receiver actually puts out closer to 115 watts @ 8 Ohms 20Hz- 20KHz.

It only has HDCP 1.4 which is fine for 1080p HD content but it will not work if you intend to get a UHD Blu-ray player as you will need HDCP 2.2

The main page says it has Dolby Atmos and can do UHD/4K at 60Hz and the above on the specifications so I would recommend looking over your owners manual when you get it. Again I hope it works out for you and is trouble free for many years to come and let us know how this receiver works out for you.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Did you follow through with the purchase of the Pioneer Elite SC-85? If so how is it working out for you? Did you manually set your MCACC settings or run the auto MCACC? One thing I have found to be very clunky and time consuming is setting the eq manually because you do not hear the changes untill you back out of the menus. Have you found that to be the case if you manually set your eq on your sc-85?

 

[ScottHM]

Yes, I picked it up. I have to say it was a bit frustrating at first as I could not get it to produce sound at the speakers from Blu-ray or DVD until after I ran the MCACC setup. Once that was done I had sound! What was really confusing was that it would play sound from my CATV box, but not my disc players, and they're all HDMI connected. I haven't tried manual MCACC setup.


The second problem I ran into was that it set my speakers to large by default, and I kept wondering why the sound from my subwoofer was so anemic. Those problems aside, I'm working my way through the user's manual and trying to figure out just what this receiver can do and how to make it do what I want. I'm a bit disappointed at the delay when switching sources, which is about three or four seconds. It seems to me a bit longer than what I experienced with my last receiver.


I haven't taken the time to do any really critical listening yet, but look forward to doing so in the next few days. So far so good.


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[Dave Moritz]

I would go in and change your speaker size to small and measure distance from you listening position to your speakers and then compair to what the auto MCACC came up with. If it is off I would manually change the distance settings. And do not be surprised if you need to manually dial in your eq setting for each channel. Check to see what your subwoofer cross over is set at the receiver as it may be effecting what signal your sub gets. It should sound good once you get it dialed in but may take some time to get it to that point and look over that manual really good.


This is what some of my menus look like and how I get to some of my settings. Hopefully they dressed the menus up and made it more user friendly since my SC-05.

 

[gene c]

If you go to Auto MCACC instead of Full MCACC you can set the speaker size and crossover before running the MCACC setup.

 

[ScottHM]

If you go to Auto MCACC instead of Full MCACC you can set the speaker size and crossover before running the MCACC setup.

Thank you. I'll definitely give that a try.


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[RSL]

I know this is an old tread but my T775 developed the same DSP check problem, so I made it into an analog only amp where it does very well exceeding the performance of my Adcom GFA 5400. The 5400 ran the woofer of my Stratus Golds, but when I used it on the higher freq section it sounded harsh. I use four channels of the Nad in direct input mode to biamp the speakers with the speaker crossovers in the flow.

But here's the info I wanted to give, with the DSP and HDMI board plugged in the display would go blank sometimes and the sound would cut off for a fraction of a second every few hours. I pulled the boards from the receiver (easy to do, two screws, pull the boards, cut the ground wire) and the problem went away. This broken receiver makes a very nice power amp with a volume control!