FWIW, I attended the launch of the Nomad at SoundStageDirect, and brought along my Lawton-modded AH-D2000. I tried the headphones that they had on the units there, and none were up to snuff compared to my own, IMO.
Now when I say I was very pleasantly surprised by how good the Nomad sound, I should qualify it with my background in the vinyl hobby: I own a Michell Tecnodec with Michell Special RB250 tonearm, Dynavector 10x5 high output moving coil cartridge, Musical Surroundings Phonomena II preamp, Mapleshade 4" maple platform (before that a Gingko Cloud 10 that just didn't quite work optimally with my turntable), etc. I've been a hi-res vinyl rip junkie for a few years now, and have proven to be unusually picky about the sound from turntable recordings. I also am not especially fond of Moving Magnet cartridges, and am particularly disinterested in Ortofons, which I feel tend toward a weirdly unnatural sound with headphones. I also went through 3 other turntables prior to my Tecnodec, including the infamous Technics SL1200.
So yeah, straight out of the headphone jack on the Nomad, and the sound was actually GOOD. I quite enjoyed it. Sure, I've heard better, but the quality from the convenience form factor of the Nomad was startling. The AH-D2000 are pretty finicky with sources in my experience, but the Nomad sounded great. To be fair, they most likely also had some serious power conditioning going on in there, which I've found to be very important. Now, the Nomad was easily blown away by the Traveler in the other room, but that is a much better platter, tonearm, plinth, etc., and was also hooked up to Lehman Black Cube phono preamp and the utterly insane $5600 Manley Labs Stingray II Integrated Amp. That combo made me want to weep. But yeah, comparing a $1k all-in-one to that is hardly fair.
Now, can you get better sound for the money? Sure, but you'll be cutting it close, and having to buy a number of different components. Say $300 for the turntable & cartridge, $200 for the phono preamp, $200 for the headphone amp, $50 for decent interconnects, certainly cheaper than $995 new but not much less than the $799 demo prices for the Nomad, and also a pain in the ass to move elsewhere. The Nomad can be unplugged from one spot, moved to another room, plugged back in, and you'd be spinning again in one trip. Try doing that with the component totals. Here's a video that shows just how flippin' easy it is to set up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khsCC4g_aFA
The biggest disadvantage of the Nomad (and the Traveler) is the lack of upgrade options. You can upgrade the stylus on the Nomad, maybe the mat, but that's about it. Swapping the whole cartridge would be pointless. The 2m works nicely with this unit. If you want the end-all-be-all in sound quality, you're not going to get it at this price range, but this is about as good as you're likely to get if this is the limit of your potential investment. It's also insanely easy to use and set up. Were I not so determined to keep squeezing the potential out of my existing rig with upgrades, I would love one of these. I desperately wanted to win their giveaway so that I could listen to vinyl on my balcony!
Don't knock the Nomad. It's a wonderful machine as either an extra turntable for the wealthy or single unit for places with limited space or patience for the finicky nature of vinyl, and it performs very admirably for the price. It has its niche. Hopefully VPI can start sending reps to Head-Fi meets going forward so that headphone junkies can hear what the thing can do.
