<p>Back in May 2014, I reviewed&nbsp;NAD&rsquo;s Masters Series&nbsp;M50&nbsp;Digital Music Player ($2499) and&nbsp;M52&nbsp;Digital Music Vault ($1999 with&nbsp;2TB&nbsp;storage). 1 At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show,&nbsp;NAD&nbsp;announced the M50.2, which is almost identical to the original&nbsp;M50&nbsp;but now incorporates two&nbsp;2TB&nbsp;hard disks, arranged as a&nbsp;2TB&nbsp;RAID array, to ensure data integrity, and adds&nbsp;TosLink&nbsp;and coaxial digital inputs, Bluetooth with&nbsp;aptX&nbsp;for streaming music from a smartphone or tablet, and two single-ended analog inputs&mdash;all for $3999, or $499 less than the combined cost of the two earlier products.</p>

- John Atkinson

Like the M50, the M50.2 offers WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, and has a CD drive, accessible via a slot on the front panel under the color TFT touchscreen, that can be used to play CDs, or rip them as FLAC, WAV, or high-bit-rate MP3 files.

The M50.2 will play files with bit depths of 16 or 24, and with sample rates up to 192kHz. DSD playback is promised by the end of this year. There are no analog outputs, but the digital outputs include HDMI, AES/EBU, and optical and coaxial S/PDIF. Playback and control of the files stored on the M50.2’s hard drive can be either via the touchscreen, which displays the album cover and metadata, or via the BluOS app running on a tablet or PC. (Android and iOS devices are supported, and the app is available for Windows and OS X.) The M50.2 will integrate with third-party control systems—Control4, Crestron, RTI—to allow it to be integrated with smart homes. It can also be a Roon endpoint, as all BluOS devices are Roon Ready.

NAD called the M50 a “software-defined product,” and the same is true of the M50.2, which is also based on an ARM processor. According to an e-mail from Greg Stidsen, NAD’s director of technology and product planning:

Conceptually, the M50.2 is meant to replace a computer and NAS for what’s been known as “computer audio.” While computer audio can be made to play high-rez music well enough, it&nbs

This story is from the December 2017 edition of Stereophile.

Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Already a subscriber? Sign In