If someone owns an NAD L54, could you try this?

Put in "Abbey Road", "Help!" (EMI), the second disc from the White Album, or Steve's mastering of "Highway 61 Revisited." Listen carefully as the music starts and watch the time display. See if you hear the very beginning of the music. Also see if the timer is jittery for the first second or two.

I have had three units which have all failed to properly play the first 0.2 -0.5 seconds of CDs. "Help" becomes "elp"; the "Ssshhhoom boom" at the start of "Come Together" becomes "oom boom"; the drum thwack at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone" becomes an echo. These are just examples using discs where the audio problem is immediately apparent.

At the same time the display is having difficulty counting seconds. Sometimes it even skips from 0 to 2.

I've been in touch with NAD who responded as follows:

"Any player that can play Dolby and DTS as well as CD has this problem to some degree. The DSP has to sample the music to see what it is before it opens the mute, otherwise you get all kinds of weird and horrible noise when a DTS disc is played. CD’s that meet Red Book Standard do not have a problem because they send 3 seconds of PCM 0’s before the music starts giving the DSP a chance to automatically select the correct mode. This is why some CD’s don’t have a problem – they meet the standard. A CD only player won’t typically have this problem."

But these CDs play fine in other DVD players. I tested them on three. And if "Abbey Road" or one of Steve's disks was so off spec that it did not play correctly on DVD players I think I would have heard about it.

 

That problem would be a deal breaker for me. A shame, as the L54 is a cool-looking unit, and practical compact solution. My el cheapo Insignia DVD player ($29) plays CDs fine