Experience with the NAD M5.......

How does this unit sound?
my experience with it left me cold. I felt it was boring too smooth on top and therefore too predictable. Used it with NAD M3, and then an ARC VT100MKII into my dyn speakers. It made horrid sounding cd's more listenable but this comes at a cost for the truly great ones came across as basically boring. Just my 2 cents

Thanks for the help........we do not want boring.
What did you replace the NAD M5 with?

My original new unit was defective!!It was replaced by authorized dealer ONLY after I raised holy hell rather than have the original one repaired which was taking a month!...use it now only for crappy sounding rock cds...for more serious listening, I purchased a used Lector...NO comparison

I have to disagree with the above posters. I recently bought the M5 to try with SACD's and think it sounds excellent. Build quality is first rate as well, the unit looks very classy unlike typical NAD gear. I hear lots of detail and good separation of instruments on the jazz and acoustic SACD's I have played on my M5. This weekend I finally tried out the redbook CD section and really could not hear much difference between the NAD and the Linn Majik CD player I also have in this system. Possibly slightly more delicacy and "air" with the Majik, but that could have been my imagination too. I'm very happy with the NAD M5 esp. for the $1200 I paid for it. I think you should try it out. BTW I also own the Ayre CX7e and agree it is a better player but it also costs $3000. If you can find the NAD for $1200 it's definitely worth it, esp if you want to try SACD's. I did not find this player "boring" at all, but maybe that's due to the rest of my system (ProAc D15's, Quad II Classic amps, Cary SLP98 preamp, Ensemble and Cardas cables).