Nuvo Concerto vs Russound CAM/CAV6.6

[felixrosbergen]

gents,

I am evlauation the pros/cons of the Nuvo Concerto vs the Russound CAM/CAV family.

Can anybody possibly point out some key differences?

So far i have:
- Nuvo cannot switch video where Russound can
- Nuvo can sense the source equipment power status whereas Russound appear to not be able to do this
- Nuvo does not appear to have a 'Page' or 'Page Trigger' input whereas Russound has, this is important to me since i plan to use the whole house audio to make accouncements from the ELK
- Does the Nuvo Keypad fit in a standard 2 gang box? I believe the Russound does.
- Nuvo appears to be configurable via a PC, can Russound do this? How does one configure a Russound?

Any commens much appreciated.

MavRic

 

[WayneW]

- Nuvo does not appear to have a 'Page' or 'Page Trigger' input whereas Russound has, this is important to me since i plan to use the whole house audio to make accouncements from the ELK
- Does the Nuvo Keypad fit in a standard 2 gang box? I believe the Russound does.

The Grand Concerto does support paging and the keypad fits in a 2 gang box. I don't know about the older plain concerto.

 

[AnthonyZ]

...more insight...
Nuvo uses less power. NuVo wins.
Russound's amp section sounds MUCH, MUCH better (though still not "audiophile") than NuVo's. Russound wins.
NuVo's keypads are much more elegant. NuVo wins.
Russound has ABUS subzones (ie: affordable). Russound wins.
Russound charges for their PC software. NuVo wins.
Russound CAN sense power status via the HT interface (a la sharing sources). Russound ties.
NuVo seems to be a bit squirrelly with their RS232 protocol. Russound has been stable for many, many moons. Russound wins.
They both deal with a degree of grey market, internet sales from dirty retailers. Dealers lose and brave DIY'ers win.

All in all, it's probably six in one hand half a dozen in the other.

 

[felixrosbergen]

WHats the cost of a Nuvo Grand Concerto?

Has anybody used the M3 media server? Does it allow you to listen to internet radio stations?

Whats the cost of the T2 tuner and Ipod dock?


The manual is also not very clear on the paging function...looks like you apply a 12v trigger and then pass whatever audio to source 6. I assume the rest is handled via the internal software and configrable.

Has anybody succesfully integrated the Elk voice announcements to a (Grand) Concerto using this paging function?

 

[IVB]

gents,

I am evlauation the pros/cons of the Nuvo Concerto vs the Russound CAM/CAV family.

Can anybody possibly point out some key differences?

From post #6 in this thread

I'm curious why the Grand Concerto seems to be mentioned alot recently. What are the key diferences between it and the Russound CAM 6.6? They seem pretty similar but with the Russound at a lower point so I'm curious why the GC seems to be mentioned more. I'm sure there's something I'm missing here :blink:

I will only state a few comparison facts, the rest really just comes down to a personal decision. The Grand is a new item, so some of its press may be due to that, but the facts are....

Starting with price...
CAM6.6T-S2 is $3,899 for the amp with 6 keypads
NV-I8GMS is $3,499 for the same configuration

To be fair, the CAM includes a single AM/FM tuner. For the GC, you would need to purchase the NV-T2DF whicj is a dual am/fm/weather tuner for $799. So the GC would be $400 more with the tuner, but it is a more capable dual tuner with weather. Or, look at the CAM6.6-S1 which is $3,249 and does not have a tuner, but has inferior S1 keypads. I do not see a configuration with no built in tuner and S2 keypads. Keep in mind these are retail prices and not ebay or dealer prices, so you exact costs may vary, but retail, or 'advertised' price is the only true comparison.

Other items...
The GC is the first system to use an 8 line capacitive OLED keypad. There are no membrane keys to stick, wear, etc. It is a flat glass screen. The technology comes from the kitchen appliance technology. Look at things like the GE profile line and you will see what the keypads look/feel like. They are very clean and elegant looking and have 8 lines of text that you can even send custom info too, like caller ID, temperatures, reminders, etc (assuming you use NuvoNet and hooked up to an HA system). I personally think the keypad is really nice, but others may like the more traditional ones better.

The GC is twice as powerful. It has 80 watts of clean Class D digital power per zone. The CAM is 40 watts of analog power.

The GC contains the same 6 amplified zones as the CAM, but it also has an additional 2 unamplified zones that you can either add full amps, or smaller amps like the LSA40 local source amps for smaller rooms.

The CAM has 2 fixed/variable outputs, the GC has fixed/variable output for each zone.

The GC allows you to use Input source 6 as a paging zone, the CAM has no paging capability.

And I'm sure alot more can go into a complete comparison. But for a very similar price, the GC has twice the power, is digital, has nicer keypads (imho) and some major additional features.

I don't know for sure, but maybe thats why it so popular right now. The best thing to do if at all possible is to see them both live at a show like EHX, and look and listen for yourself.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Thanks IVB..must have missed that other thread somehow..thanks for pointing it out...

Seems like the Grand Concerto is the preferred choice...was surprised by the pricetag through..though i''d have it all setup for about $2000 ...

One more thing....do i need anyting special with the Elk to get voice announcements from the Elk to the Concerto? I 've seen 'voice drivers' but don't know if i would need one.

Can i just wired the audio out to the zone 6 input on the concerto?

 

[WayneW]

WHats the cost of a Nuvo Grand Concerto?
Has anybody used the M3 media server? Does it allow you to listen to internet radio stations?
Whats the cost of the T2 tuner and Ipod dock?

The manual is also not very clear on the paging function...looks like you apply a 12v trigger and then pass whatever audio to source 6. I assume the rest is handled via the internal software and configrable.

Has anybody succesfully integrated the Elk voice announcements to a (Grand) Concerto using this paging function?

Check with AO for their best price.
The M3 does not support internet radio, but you can use a PC output to one of the GC inputs.
I believe Steve has his Elk (or maybe his CQC) announcements going through the paging input.

 

[Steve]

Yea, definitely call Martin, you may be surprised at the price :blink:. I had the Elk through the Nuvo at one point, but since I had CQC I just started using TTS with a nice voice for everything. You can trigger the paging with contact closure and I used a relay on the M1RB but did not like that too much. Since I was going through CQC anyway, I added paging to the CQC Nuvo driver so now I just control paging on/off via serial and have been much happier with it. I probably could have tweaked the relay menthod more but I wanted serial control anyway. I just have a 1/8" stereo cable that goes from pc audio card to the GC. I could mix in the Elk if I want to. But for Elk you need to make a line level adapter. It's pretty easy and the instructions are on the Elk website.