NAD M23 Stereo Amplifier: Best Amp Ever Bench Tested?!?

@mapman 

Right on the mark.

@twoleftears 

Only in the most superficial way...The spec wars of Japanese transistor amps were based on a false premise...The science and engineering has improved in the last 50 years. See:
 

"The other important trend in the 60’s was brought on by the usurpation of the role of the vacuum tube by the transistor. Japanese hifi firms hadn’t seen much success with their tube-based designs in the early 60’s.But with the advent of the transistor Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony, Sherwood, Kenwood, and Sansui, all entered the US market with products whose specifications far exceeded those of US-made tube-based components. Of course 20-20 hindsight shows that these specifications used THD or total harmonic distortion figures rather than breaking down the harmonic distortion into 1st, 2nd, 3d, and 4th order harmonics. If they had, audiophiles would have seen how the distortion characteristics of early transistors were much worse at higher odd-order harmonics than tubes. Many audiophiles switched from tube electronics to solid-state electronics and discovered that the sonic results weren’t a step up in quality or enjoyment."

The preamplifier is the actual heart and brains of the system. 

Almost every manufacturer recognizes this as a fact (PS Audio is not a subscriber to this) McIntosh, Pass Labs, Lab 12, EMM, Raven Audio, AGD, NAD, Audio Hungary, LTA, Simaudio, A-S, Rogue, on and on.

Also it is interesting that the majority of owners of separates utilizing Class D power amplification  are using Tubed Preamplifiers like LTA, A-S, AR, SUPRATEK. Quick Silver, on and on. 

So Mark is behind the success and makes Bruno's module sound good.  

Just saying and pointing this out. 

Have a good evening. 

Bruno designed the amp module which is the heart of the amplifier.

Speaking for myself, it's all about what I hear.  Usually, I already know the price.  But not always.  The "specs" doesn't really matter.

A manufacture that prints less than or poor specs is either brutally honest and or lacking marketing savvy.