HI guys, my new year holiday is going to over soon, so today morning I just took time looking at my two very first boxes and make a comparison. Here come the National Rx-5400 vs the Rx-5700, which I did post pictures of them in another topic. I’m new into this listening/collection hobby and have had only few boxes, so this comparo is totally based on my feeling while listening/looking at those two boxes.
Build quality: they have almost the same dimensions but the 5700 is much more heavier, maybe 4-5 pounds more. Both are well built but I love the feeling of the 5700 more. Every thing is accurately and firmly placed. I could say that plenty of work and love had been spent in designing and making the 5700.
I did open both my 5700 and 4360 and I even liked the build and construction of the 5700 more than the other.
About the look: I first lean toward the 5700 when I bought it, due to the symmetrical design and a lot of metal in front part, and of course the “wooden†sides. It looks elegant and exquisite for sure. But over time, I like the more classy and glossy look of the 5400 better. Its glossy parts around woofers and tweeters are such attractive and make the whole box much more interesting looked for a long time. In fact, all of my friends, also my parents, love the look of the 5400 over the 5700. They told that it looked much more classic and old, while the 5700 looked more high-tech and modern. The tuning-dial on the 5700 is much darker and then harder to see, also its very small dust caps, along with huge plain-black square grills are quite boring. I see other pics of other 5700 with chromed – round plastic parts in front of the speakers and they look better than my 5700.
Sound quality: that’s hard part for me. The 5700 has 20W output while 5400 has 14W so the first one is a little louder. In my opinion they have similar sound, clear and very good at medium-low level. The 5700 clearly has better high, extremely good high I could say. Within near distant, I can’t hear the different in bass department but if I step back to father distance, the bass from 5700 seems to overpass the 5400. That is more clear if I put them each in one direction on my left and right side, then turn volume up to same level, sometimes it sounds like bass that I hear comes only from the 5700’s direction. I don’t know what characteristics should be called to describe that phenomenon but I guess the 5700 bass should be considered to be better. Both don’t have warm sound like the 4360.
Features: both have a lot of features: mic-mixing, song search, separate bass/treble control. The 5700 has Noise reduction and separate left/right record level while the 5400 has wide mode (for FM only) and tape speed adjusting. The 5700 has two big and beautiful VU-meters with dedicated switch to change between sound and tuning/battery level. The 5400 doesn’t have any meter.
Both have great tuner that go up to 108. The AM reception is very, very amazing on both boxes.
In conclusion, both are lookers and beautiful sounding to me. I love the tuning reception, the built quality and the National marks on them as well.
Some pics:
Thank for reading!
Build quality: they have almost the same dimensions but the 5700 is much more heavier, maybe 4-5 pounds more. Both are well built but I love the feeling of the 5700 more. Every thing is accurately and firmly placed. I could say that plenty of work and love had been spent in designing and making the 5700.
I did open both my 5700 and 4360 and I even liked the build and construction of the 5700 more than the other.
About the look: I first lean toward the 5700 when I bought it, due to the symmetrical design and a lot of metal in front part, and of course the “wooden†sides. It looks elegant and exquisite for sure. But over time, I like the more classy and glossy look of the 5400 better. Its glossy parts around woofers and tweeters are such attractive and make the whole box much more interesting looked for a long time. In fact, all of my friends, also my parents, love the look of the 5400 over the 5700. They told that it looked much more classic and old, while the 5700 looked more high-tech and modern. The tuning-dial on the 5700 is much darker and then harder to see, also its very small dust caps, along with huge plain-black square grills are quite boring. I see other pics of other 5700 with chromed – round plastic parts in front of the speakers and they look better than my 5700.
Sound quality: that’s hard part for me. The 5700 has 20W output while 5400 has 14W so the first one is a little louder. In my opinion they have similar sound, clear and very good at medium-low level. The 5700 clearly has better high, extremely good high I could say. Within near distant, I can’t hear the different in bass department but if I step back to father distance, the bass from 5700 seems to overpass the 5400. That is more clear if I put them each in one direction on my left and right side, then turn volume up to same level, sometimes it sounds like bass that I hear comes only from the 5700’s direction. I don’t know what characteristics should be called to describe that phenomenon but I guess the 5700 bass should be considered to be better. Both don’t have warm sound like the 4360.
Features: both have a lot of features: mic-mixing, song search, separate bass/treble control. The 5700 has Noise reduction and separate left/right record level while the 5400 has wide mode (for FM only) and tape speed adjusting. The 5700 has two big and beautiful VU-meters with dedicated switch to change between sound and tuning/battery level. The 5400 doesn’t have any meter.
Both have great tuner that go up to 108. The AM reception is very, very amazing on both boxes.
In conclusion, both are lookers and beautiful sounding to me. I love the tuning reception, the built quality and the National marks on them as well.
Some pics:
Thank for reading!
