Quote Originally Posted by audiomadness
I've been using my Pioneer Elite DV-45A Universal Player as my work horse source unit for some time now and have been immensely satisfied with the quality of it's 2channel presentation. I generally use the digital coax outs mainly for DD/DTS movies and use the 2channel analog outs for my 2channel pure CD music listening as well as the high rez formats. I've actually compared the sound through both connections on my NAD T752 with CDs. Through my ears, I couldn't go wrong with either of the connections because both sounded very good, but the DAC's on the Pioneer Elite had somewhat of an edge towards warmth on my CDs. The Burr-Brown's on the Pioneer Elite probably had something to do with that.
Hmm, I've got a T742 and I'm pretty sure it's got the same DACs as the T752. I was using an old CD changer hooked up digitally to my receiver for my source. I ended up having to buy a dedicated CD player once it was pointed out to me just how poor the DACs in the receiver were for neutral, 2-channel rendering (I borrowed an $1800 universal player for a day, and hooked up "analogly", it smoked the setup I had, so I knew there were problems). I now use a Cambridge 640C, and it's pretty darn good. If I hook it up digitally too and switch back and forth between analog and digital, it's extremely apparent just how bad the DACs in the NAD receiver are.

Just thought you might want to know this. There's another several levels of fidelity above what you're experiencing, if you find your Pioneer to only be marginally better than your NAD...