Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
Now the build quality, I was pretty disappointed in (Edit: it's not the build _quality_, it's the _design_). I replaced a Sony ES integrated amp with the Sprout. I must say, while two entirely different animals, the quality of the Sony ES was far and above that of the Sprout. I use bare wire for my speakers and actually had to downgrade my wire to a higher gauge because of the chincy speaker terminals. Even the cheap wire I went with would barely fit. Guess I need to get some banana plugs. The knobs on the front are held in place with a set screw and the hole for the set screw is very visible, depending on where the knob is pointed. The headphone 1/4" -> 1/8" adapter supplied feels like it's made of brass-plated tin. Very "cheap." And finally the case looks good from arm's length, but I'm not impressed with either the wood or the metal texture up close.
All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase. It does sound very good. I feel the price I received on MassDrop is very fair for what I received, and I would certainly recommend the Sprout to others. I am just disappointed at the case design. I would have much rather spent another $50 for a better design.
By the way, my choice of a pair of Sonus Faber Toy Monitors was spot on. Love them. I paired them with an REL T-5 sub. For inputs, I'm using a Pioneer PL-518 TT, and a Sonos Connect as sources. BT input works flawlessly as well, by the way.
Re: what @mydonkeykong says, I haven't had to push it past 50% so I can't comment on the hiss. My general use has it between 20% and 25% and if it's making noise, it's less than the ambient noise of various things around my house.