Review: NuVo Grand Concerto Multiroom System

Multiroom audio, for those that have never dealt with such in their homes, tends to be an intimidating topic for many. Part of this reality is that certain companies have made the endeavor absurdly expensive for all but the most well-heeled, but others have noticed the market exists for affordable solutions that are easy to use. In this first of two parts featuring two such manufacturers, I review the NuVo Grand Concerto, the flagship of NuVo Technologies' offerings.

The NuVo Grand Concerto is a one-box solution that facilitates six sources, and up to eight zones. The Grand Concerto offers six of these zones amplified out of the box, with the remaining two requiring an additional two channels of external amplification (Nuvo offers the Zone Pak, which incorporates an additional amplifier and keypad). Included is the controller/amplifier, keypads, and ancillary connection cables. The best part of this system is that the keypads utilize OLED keypads that offer touch feedback and as many as eight lines of metadata. These keypads, when utilized with NuVo sources, offer the data from tuners, music servers, and iPods (wired and wireless). The system easily facilitates separate sources with full information in six different rooms with a minimum of setup pain. Offered with the keypads are three colors of bezels to match nearly any decor.

Installation, unlike many other multiroom servers, do not require a professional programmer and permanent tethering to a specialty audio dealer. In fact, NuVo prides itself on initial ease of installation, and has some of the best tech support in the sector. The NuVo system only requires specialized programming equipment and software (and the associated dealer) when incorporating new, non-NuVo infared codes. This is a minor issue, and from experience, the software is easy enough to use that it allows dealers to be competitive in programming cost. The system in fact will ask the user to which inputs the other NuVo components are connected. New users and households with children and spirited teens will appreciate the ability to set the initial turn-on and maximum volume levels to prevent damage and, more importantly, potential annoyance. Other potential parental and convenience features include the password-protected ability to not only prioritize certain sources to certain zones, but also to restrict which sources are routed to which areas. Each keypad offers an IR passthrough for situations where the original remote is needed or preferred, and can be selectively disabled. In addition, any non-NuVo sources can still be controlled via connected IR flashers, although metadata from these sources will not be conveyed to the OLED keypads.

As with any system, there are some drawbacks. Some are minor, some are frustrating, some are merely inconvenient. NuVo's fall into the latter category. Although supporting iPods (a neccessary thing), transferring music into the Grand Concerto's MV-M3 Music Server only facilitates transfers from libraries incorporated into Windows Media Server 11. In other words, libraries will probably be synced from iTunes to an iPod deployed with the NuVo system, but the reminder of the content will have to be loaded from another program. Although (in theory) this has to be done only once, the lack of a built-in CD drive on the NV-M3 means that content must be duplicated across iTunes and WM11 when adding new content. Happily, the Grand Concerto allows WAV (uncompressed CD) files to be dropped into the system for critical listeners. Those more-finicky types with quality audio systems will also choose to utilize better amplification than what the Grand Concerto provides, as the 40WPC incorporated into the system can be a little anemic under load. In fact, anything other than background music listeners will probably choose to do likewise.

In short, the NuVo Grand Concerto system is an easy-to-use, attractive, and compact system that is extremely DIY friendly. NuVo constantly offers revisions and software updates, and stays on top of customer suggestions and quickly fields the few complaints levied their direction. As it stands, the Grand Concerto, as the most expensive offering from Nuvo Technologies, still remains an incredible value.