ASRock CoreHT 252B: Overview

Is ASRock's all-in-one Home Theatre PC (HTPC), the CoreHT 252B-4G50/B, the perfect living room companion to sit by your TV?

Depending on how you measure it, it's smaller than an Apple Mac Mini (the Mini is about half the height, but the CoreHT wins from the overhead dimensions) and has the advantage of coming with a Blu-ray drive built in and front-facing USB 3.0 ports for other media.

It looks good too, in its tiny tin enclosure that's been lacquered in a glossy black.

Attach a USB TV card and it's realistically a replacement for most of your set-top boxes in a chassis that's smaller than most Freeview tuners.

The ASRock CoreHT 252B then really is a media box par excellence.

The Core i5 2520M Mobile Sandy Bridge processor also features Intel's higher-end HD Graphics 3000 tech, and Creative's THX HD TruStudio Pro audio is built in to the integrated audio.

It seems flawless - the ultimate NAS box, entertainment device and workstation all in one. Have we finally found the one-box converged future of the digital home?

ASRock CoreHT 252B: Benchmarks

Thanks to the Intel Core i5 processor, the ASRock CoreHT 252B behaves like a real PC. It's fast, ideally suited to video encoding and playback, plus it has a fair stab at games too.

ASRock CoreHT 252B: Verdict

The more you prod and push the ASRock CoreHT 252B-4G50/B, the more there is to like about it.

For the most part, it's near silent. The only noisy component is the Blu-ray drive – which is obviously annoying, but not the end of the world. It's also very power-efficient.

The whole system idles at just over 26W. At no point did it consume less than 80W. That's a lot of power-hungry technology you can recycle, to make you feel good about your carbon footprint.

The problem is that the CoreHT's strengths are also its weaknesses.

The no-compromise components are right on the edge of what it's possible to put in a box this size, and they run hot. The CPU never dropped below 60C (140F) in our tests, and once the Blu-ray fires up or a CPU-intensive task starts, it's a furnace in there and the fans kick in.

There's room for an extra hard drive, but you'd think twice before fitting one.

It's noticeably loud, even if it is Red October compared to an older Xbox 360.

More critical, however, is the price. You'd struggle to build a system like this, but only because getting hold of a Socket 1155 mini-ITX motherboard and case this small would take a lot of hunting down.

Diligently hunting them down probably wouldn't save you much – all things considered – but for this much money there are certain things we expect to see included.

These include an IR receiver, without which the included remote is wasted plastic, or Blu-ray playback software so you can actually watch films on your new drive. Critical, you might argue, but missing from the CoreHT.

More importantly, you need to supply your own copy of Windows, which takes the total price of an ASRock CoreHT 252B-4G50/B to almost £700.

That's a lot of money, considering the alternatives. There are many good streaming devices for less than £100, an Atom-based media centre is £250, a Mac Mini is £610 and Core i5 laptops start at £500. Plus internet-enabled Blu-ray players, TVs and PVR boxes make media centres slightly irrelevant anyway.

We liked

From a living room point of view, it's a media centre with few faults.

The ASRock CoreHT 252B-4G50/B has a top-notch processor with good video and audio add-ons that's tiny and almost silent, plus there's room to expand it internally or via USB 3.0.

We disliked

It's not exactly overpriced, but it is still expensive.

Especially when there's so little polish. An IR remote without a receiver in the box? A Blu-ray drive but no player software? BYO Windows? A CPU that idles at 60C? Thanks, but no thanks.

Verdict

The CoreHT appeals to almost every one of our senses because it's a good-looking, do-everything box, so having one in our lounge would be awesome.

But it's just not essential enough to justify the price.

So five stars from the heart, but our head can think of many alternative set-ups for the same amount of money.

NAD has an enviable reputation for delivering superb value for money, especially when performance is a priority. Not actually my words, but NAD's. The claim heads up the NAD T747 product overview and, try as I might, I simply can't disagree.

Over the years, decades in fact, NAD has consistently delivered solid-performing products that have generally sacrificed bells and whistles in favour of better performance for your hard-earned, or benefit-thieved, pound.

But hold the phone! Have you seen the features list of the new T747? It has got auto-set-up with a supplied mic, two remote controls, multizone support, an onscreen GUI, a 1080p video upscaler and a data-dock connection for an iPod – and I've only stopped there because I ran out of breath.

Add-in a comprehensive suite of IR repeaters, 12V triggers, an RS232 port, ample AV sockets and 4-in-1-out v1.3 HDMIs, and top it off with decoding for all our favourite Dolby and DTS HD audio codecs and NAD's own matrix surround sound format, EARS. Ah, makes me chuckle every time.

The 747 has also had a bit of a makeover. Compared to previous NAD receivers, the new properly-black and neatly-curved fascia with blue display elevates it to simply 'plain' – up from butt-ugly. It is not yet mixing it with the likes of Harman Kardon or Pioneer in the style stakes, but lessons learnt from the success of the rather funky Viso components are certainly beginning to show through. Even the remote is topped with a gloss black panel reminiscent of current Samsung TV and BD deck handsets.

Okay, it's missing a few optical digital inputs, the terminals are a bit on the budget side of solid and there is no Ethernet port for networking. But we're talking about a sub-£1,000 receiver here.

Signal failure

This NAD also comes with an optional trump card – a DAB radio module. A £150 premium on top of the base-line model gets you the DB1 DAB module or, for stateside NAD owners, an XM satellite radio tuner.

Whether the DAB tuner is any good is a mystery to me as a decent signal hasn't made it to the South Coast yet – so as most of Sussex and Kent still regard FM and Nicam stereo as 'new-fangled', I do rather miss the net-connection for web radio.

There is a lot going on inside and outside of the NAD for the money, so where's the catch? Has the brand given up on its less-is-more performance-first philosophy and gone all 'gadgety'? I severely hope not, because it will get its corporate backside whipped by Onkyo at this price point.

Predictably, NAD has taken a very modest view of its power output. A mere 7 x 60W is the claimed output, which implies the T747 has all the raw industrial machismo of an energy-saving lightbulb. This rating is buried within a veritable spreadsheet of power figures proclaimed at different impedances, frequencies and phases of the moon.

More reassuringly, our Tech Labs measured the output at 5 x 141W, and having lived with the T747 for a week, I can safely say the power will be 'more than enough' for most people.

Clunky

The T747's set-up is straightforward – or would have been had the review sample had the correct remote control supplied. Yet even using the fascia buttons alone the receiver is up and running in a jiffy compared to, well, pretty much every other £1,000 receiver on the market. On the downside, the onscreen display is more of a colourful menu rather than the photo-realistic GUI's glamming up the competition, and some of the settings are rather coarse.

For example, speaker distance can only be adjusted in 0.3m/1ft increments (many AVRs now go to 1cm) and the relative channel level is adjusted in chunky 1dB steps – the Denons and Pioneers at this price by a factor of 10. Oh, and the auto-set up got the subwoofer level so wrong I lost two fillings to the THX logo clip.

It doesn't really matter, though. The NAD is so easy to adjust that it's almost as quick to set it up manually and the sound is lush and addictive. Playing the Blu-ray release of Monsters, Inc, the T747 rises easily to the challenge of the various vocal tones and the incredible array of different set ambiences.

Listen to Mike and Sulley's dialogue in the hangar and you feel every bit of the vast space, with the NAD creating accurate reverb and echo effects that nail the spatial sensation. Yet switch to a bedroom scene (no, not one of those bedroom scenes...) and you can all but feel the duvet and furniture damping their voices. This accuracy and detail is not uncommon among receivers of this price point, but the T747 manages to elicit the effect with such ease.

Nor is it simply too safe for its own good. As the tempo rises NAD's receiver picks up the pace nicely, adding a little more of everything across the board. Bass gets deeper and faster, the top-end projects further and the soundstage expands to create an even more impressive action vista.

It's not an AVR that will have you 'oohing' and 'ahhhhing' over any one particular facet of its presentation – or perhaps seeking out action-clips for the sake of it – but you won't find anything to point a critical finger at either!

Watts the story?

Push up the volume and you will begin to wonder just where every other manufacturers' Watts are going to. With ample clockwise action on the volume knob the sound simply grows in stature without getting harsh or changing balance – a common trait in less powerful amps.

With large, efficient floorstanding speakers it managed a 100dB (A-WTD average) in-room output with enviable grace, and turned the comic chase scenes in Bolt into sequences worthy of Bullit.

Well, almost. The T747 is every bit as punchy and dynamic as the £1,000 competition, but I discerned a limited maximum SPL. Simply put, the NAD will not go as maxed-out loud as some of its peers, but it does get to medium-serious listening volumes a whole lot more gracefully that many of them.

Will the slightly limited max SPL matter to most people? Probably not – unless you are blessed with stone-deaf neighbours. What the NAD offers instead is an unflappable solidity and cast-iron guarantee that no matter what you throw at it, it will continue to sound great.

A week's listening encompassed a broad brush of Blu-rays – ZZ Top Live in Texas, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Milk and Lesbian Vampire Killers – and the NAD disappeared into the movie-watching experience every time.

The T747 is a capable all-rounder that lulls you with its easy-going style and by being pretty darn good at everything. Denon's equivalent has more chutzpah, Pioneer's more detail and Onkyo's perhaps more refinement, but the T747's simplicity, solidity and consistent performance keeps NAD's reputation for quality and value thoroughly intact. In all, a worthy upgrade for existing NAD faithful.

Mission 79 series review

Mission doesn't introduce a new speaker range very often, so it was with excitement that I auditioned this 5.1 array culled from its recent 79 series.

These are currently the most ambitious and costly speakers available from the brand (apart from its Pilastro towers, which are a high-end one-off and aimed at affluent stereophiles). Yet, at under £2,400, I feel this system is far from overpriced.

For that money you get an array of cabinets that are strikingly designed – not always a phrase associated with loudspeakers. The enclosures are slim and faceted at the front, to encourage a broad spread of sound.

They make extensive use of curved panels, reducing internal symmetry and resonances, and the inverted drive unit layout makes it possible to use a shorter enclosure as the tweeter can be just below ear level.

Build quality is excellent, too. Three types and densities of wood are used in the construction, which helps reduce structural resonances thanks to mutual damping. The main side panels (top in the case of the centre speaker) have a multiply construction, which is an unusual elaboration.

BOOMING: With the grilles removed, these Missions look like they mean business

There are three finishes available: black (pictured here) or white gloss, and a rosewood option for those who prefer something more closely associated with trees. The plain finishes are applied in seven layers, each of which is rubbed down before the next is applied, the result being a deep, attractive gloss you can see your reflection in.

New drive units

Mission has crafted new drive units for its 79 series. Mainstay of the whole range, subwoofer apart, is a tweeter with an ultra-lightweight impregnated textile dome.

The unit is fitted with powerful rare earth magnets, and decoupled from the speaker enclosures using something Mission calls 'closed-cell gasketing', though the brand fails to explain how exactly it works in its literature. The bass drivers use a recently-developed resin-cured fibre cone material which is low in weight, and high in strength.

The front floorstanding speakers are the most unusual, as they also have a side-firing bass unit. The enclosures are built in mirror-image pairs, so you can chose whether the side-firing driver faces inwards or outwards. You can decide which by trial and error, but the former is preferred in most rooms.

ONE VOICE: The rears, centre and front speakers share the same midrange and tweeter design

The subwoofer is fairly conventional in layout, with a downward-facing driver that makes positioning not very critical. Unusually, however, it uses a Class AB amplifier, rather than a digital amp, the cheap and easy expedient preferred by many designers. Phase, level and crossover settings are readily accessible, and can be operated by remote control, making it almost too easy to mess up the internal settings.

Sound quality

My main platform for testing this Mission system was the Anthem D2V, P2 and P5 pre-power combo, with Denon's Blu-ray transport acting as principal picture pusher. Other electronics, though, were also used, including cooking-quality Denon and Onkyo amplification and a NAD DVD player, to confirm driveability.

What they showed was that this Mission system is not hard to control. Low-cost amplifiers are quite effective at squeezing useful levels of sound from the enclosures, though somewhat optimistic sensitivity ratings from Mission confirm that you need rather more power than you might expect.

• Read TechRadar's Anthem D2V, P2 and P5 review

On the other hand, these speakers don't have the internal headroom to cope with anything like full power output from the heavyweight (in every sense) Anthem electronics. At moderate volume levels, or even what might be described as moderately high volume levels, it all sounds very well poised and in control.

But go beyond a certain point on the volume control (the actual level is dependent on the source equipment and the source material) and it quite quickly deteriorates into an untidy-sounding mess.

However, despite this, Mission's 79 series still goes more than loud enough to exceed normal comfort levels in most rooms, and for most people. The levels it can generate without audible compression or distortion are estimated to be around the 100-102dBA level, but as usual this number is frequency dependent.

And relax...

This brings me to the more important question, namely how it performs qualitatively. And I was impressed.

One part of my audition involved the latest James Bond opus in lossless format from Blu-ray, Quantum of Solace (007 can always be relied on for an exciting, high-octane opening sequence, and this one is no exception), and the Missions coped well.

SERIOUS LOOKING: Mission's 79 series would surely be Darth Vader's surround speakers of choice...

The balance of the opening sequence is such that you don't really need too much power to make a satisfying impact. Apply too many Watts and you'll get a rather muddled, shouty midband, which has nothing to do with any problem intrinsic to the speakers, but which makes uncomfortable listening.

Uncomfortable is a very un-Mission 79-like quality. If a single word could be used to sum this system up, it is easy or relaxed. In its natural state, the system is unusually clean and transparent – you may quickly forget you're listening to speakers. There is nothing hard or aggressive about the system midband and neither is the treble grainy. The overall qualities are of clarity and openness.

Another useful attribute of the speakers is their stereo imagery, which is precise and provides a firmly located image even for listeners seated to one side. This is no surprise given the narrow faceted enclosures, whose geometry is all about controlling imagery.

The three satellite speaker designs (front, centre and rears) are broadly physically comparable. All sound consistent with each other apart from the centre speaker, which is normally oriented at 90 degrees from the others and tends to punch through the middle, giving a more positive, and in some ways more articulate, dialogue quality.

The subwoofer has to be treated on its own, of course. It has good detail and limited overhang. Again it is not the most muscular design of its type, but there is almost no detectable box signature, and bass depth is good, though it will only generate moderate volume levels. It performs well, bolstering special effects tracks replete with explosions and other noises, but it can sound underpowered with the bass track on some music discs.

Serious ambition

This is Mission's most ambitious system for a long time, and one payoff is a more sophisticated and transparent sound than you might expect. Another powerful payoff is the superb aesthetics; these Missions are almost in a class of their own at the price.

The system just looks wonderful in the black finish submitted for test, and the white option is arguably even more striking and contemporary-looking. This is not a package for those who judge speakers by how loud they go, but it makes good sense of difficult or muddled soundtracks. Highly recommended.