Are NAD fast becoming a thing of the past? I have always loved their stuff though I notice that not much is written about their kit with the exception of their high end gear. Discuss.
Are NAD fast becoming a thing of the past? I have always loved their stuff though I notice that not much is written about their kit with the exception of their high end gear. Discuss.
Location: Essex-Herts border
Posts: 141
I'm Matt.
Not really, NAD still make a decent range of gear starting from the budget end stuff, their C series amps sound good & their masters series are very good indeed.
Is it possible that as they use Sevenoaks for their main distribution, there is a bit of snobbery about them?
I don’t read any Hifi mags, so I don’t know what sort of coverage they get.
I think the duller than battleship grey theme of their C series stuff turned a few people off, including certain sections of the hifi press, and I can see their point. With the WAF factor that many have to contend with/consider means a dull industrial looking "ugly" box isn't going to be easy to place in a lot of households. NAD's overall image needs bringing into the 21st century. Imagine walking into a hifi dealer with a nad amp next to a comparably priced Yamaha, Cambridge etc and trying to convince an aesthetically conscious partner that the NAD was one you wanted to place in the Laura Ashley inspired living room....
However, I had a C356 amp, upgraded & modded by JS Audio which I enjoyed very much, and its the one bit of hifi I regret selling. My own affinity to them lead me to recently buying a NAD D1050 dac/headphone amp....very good to my crude and inexperienced lugs.
Yamaha NP-S303 / Audiolab 6000cdt
NAD D1050 dac
Creek Destiny 2
PMC DB1 Gold / KEF LS50
Never ever had the urge to try/buy NAD.
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Bluesound Node 2i
Audio Analogue Pucinni SE
B&W DM607 s2
Chord Shawline X speaker cable
Klotz ic’s
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 306
I'm Mel.
They have had a lot of publicity with their Bluesound streaming brand and very good it is too.
Mel
I've always liked NAD stuff. Good, honest, sensibly priced gear. Their C338 amp has had good reviews, apart from 'What-Hi', so they must be doing something right.
Their Master Series gear is some real cutting edge stuff. All digital preamps, some unique circuitry, which got some good reviews when it was first introduced. I can’t speak for their lower level offerings, but I don’t see the company going anywhere? Unless they are having financial difficulties we don’t know about?
Russell
I have a NAD Master Series M51 DAC as pictured.
Full 17" width, built like a Tank with a 15mm thick faceplate.
Fully balanced design, with plenty of inputs including HDMI, which has a pass through facility that lets you strip 2 channel audio out of the signal.
It was a Stereophile A+ recommended product from 2013 to 2017. With the vast number of DAC's being released during that period, I think that says a lot. It was only dropped from the list due to their policy of automatically dropping items three years after its last review. Apart from them loving the way it sounds, when it came to testing it..........
"NAD's M51 Direct Digital DAC offers measured performance that is almost beyond reproach. Color me impressed.—John Atkinson"
I can confirm from listening to it in my own humble set up, it's a very, very, good product.
I have always regretted parting with my NAD356 amp. After crying in my pretzels for a year or so I replaced it with a NAD 326BEE, which is as far as my budget allowed at the time.
GrahamS - It's not what you hear that counts, it's what you think you hear........
Present Kit: NAD 326BEE, NAD C515BEE CD player, JVC QL-7 DD turntable, JVC Tonearm, Shure M97Ve, Audio Technica AT95EX, Pickering V15, JVC Z1E, Wharfedale Diamond 230s, Visual Rio interconnects and My Ears.