One of the trickiest needles for any journalist to thread is the concept of bias. We’re human. We have biases. Pretending otherwise leads to all sorts of preposterous knot-tying and apologetics. So my position on bias is that when I recognize one of my own (I can’t possibly recognize them all, which is why I say “when”), I spell it out.
Can a good volume knob sway my opinion of a product? Absolutely. So I tell you that. Do VU meters enhance my appreciation of a piece of gear? If I’ve got my eyes open, you bet. So I tell you that.
For that matter, do the letters “NAD” on the packaging for a new piece of gear get me a little giddy? Ayup. So you should be cognizant of that emotional response when reading my first impressions of the company’s C 700 V2 streaming integrated amplifier ($1999, CA$2199, £1499, €1599).
The packaging itself is rather nondescript, all things considered, with that unmistakable NAD logo being its most prominent aspect. I continue to dig the vector graphics the company employs on the side of its packaging, though, to give you a sense of the design of the gear within. It’s just a sense, of course—a tease, if you will—since line art alone can’t really give you a complete picture of fit and finish, never mind the quality of the display screen, which is only hinted at in that illustration.
Things inside the box are also pretty much no-nonsense, although it’s nice to see that, even on the budget end of the spectrum, NAD is relying on stacked-and-cut sheets of EPE foam rather than cheaper-but-crumbly EPS. Atop that, you’ll get the usual pack-in literature, although you might notice the lack of accessories, such as a remote and power cord.
They’re there. They’re just hiding in an accessories box under the bottom piece of sculpted EPE. It may seem like such a silly thing to point out, but I like touches like this. It points to the fact that NAD designs its packaging specifically for each product, meaning there’s not a lot of space wasted, which makes for more affordable and sustainable shipping.
Inside the box, you get a nice remote and two power cords, only one of which you’ll need depending on where you live. I like the remote quite a bit, even if it’s not the style of NAD remote control I’m accustomed to. It’s a better fit for the streamlined design and operation of this little streaming amp.
And by “little streaming amp,” I do mean “little streaming amp.” Perched atop the C 700 V2 is one of my myriad 56mm 3x3 GAN speed cubes, which always make a good scale reference given that most people have held a Rubik’s Cube at some point in the past few decades. At first, I tried to just use the little remote control for scale, but it only made the remote look huge, which is exactly the opposite of what I intended.
You can also see here how much real estate the 5″ screen takes up. Further context and scale are provided by the observation that the screen is about as tall as my iPhone 16 Pro Max screen is wide, but not nearly as wide as my phone screen is tall. But I can’t photograph that because my phone is my camera. We live in the weirdest of futures.
Flipping the amp around for a peek at the back panel reveals that there aren’t exactly oodles of physical inputs, which makes sense for an amp designed primarily for streaming music consumption.
Zoom in on the I/O, though, and you can see one of the key differences between the original C 700 and the new V2: one of the RCA line-level inputs has been replaced with a phono input (MM). Otherwise, connectivity remains largely the same, with one remaining line input, a stereo pre out, a subwoofer out, a coaxial in, an optical in, and an HDMI eARC port.
What you can’t see by looking at the physical connections is that the V2 supports 4.1-channel Dolby surround thanks to its support for wireless BluOS surround speakers, and it will also—at some unspecified future date—support Dirac Live room correction, although you’ll have to purchase the Dirac license and microphone separately once those capabilities are added via firmware.
So I won’t be able to test the room correction for my review. But I’ll have my in-depth evaluation of all the V2’s other features finished in a few weeks. Stay tuned.
. . . Dennis Burger
dennisb@soundstagenetwork.com
