NAD Owner's - Unite

[Amon Guinn]

Hey Guys!

I'm probably the "odd man out" here, but I got my NAD's the American way..........I bought one off of eBay (7060 in Excellent Cond.) and the 3020 was in a trash barrel!! I asked the owner if he minded that I look at it and he said to take it home, it works great, just broke the edge off of the faceplate 2" in and down past the power button! It looks bad, but sounds great! I know it's got a dinky amount of wpc, but I just cannot resist getting it out every blue moon and listening to it through my BA T-930's that make it sound as good as my Sansui 5000A that sounds like it did when I bought it barely used in my early 20's (born 1957)..........No complaints here about NAD products!! I thought , like many of my friends, that unless it doesn't have some shine somewhere on the front..........just isn't worth lissnin' to!! Now I have a bud that has his Sony HT setup in his TV room and cannot believe my little 3020 can reproduce Music better and more "live" than his $1000. stack of expensive named sound effects! (I'm NOT a fan of HT.......don't get me wrong, I still like it's effects..........just not what I want to "waste my money on") Toot-a-loo, dudes!! ......apologies to Ian Hunter

*****Update April 19, 2017******* Cannot believe I wrote this gobbledy-gook! Musta been when I was on Dilaudid for pain, LOL! Still have the 3020 and have gone through many speakers since this....."weirdness".....was written. Good to see others that enjoy the cheaper side of Mid-Fi equipment like I do and appreciate what the designers were intending for their target market! I Love to listen to my 78's and 33 1/3's through this model........I'm always asked how much power it puts out and I just smile! Leave em guessing, LOL!

 

[chaskelljr63]

Good Morning each and all.

Hopefully, I will receive a warm welcome as a new member of the NAD 3140 Owner Club.

I am in the process of assembling a nice sounding bedroom system around it.

It has a great building block concept around it, but I have a nicer and more modern "KEF/Adcom/Magmum Dynalab/PS Audio/Thorens (Original TD-160 -- 1970-71)-Jelco SA-750D-Sumiko BPS EVO III/Oppo Digital" rig in my living room (but it is good to know that you have that upgradability around just in case you might need it).

I am planning to obtain and use the following with my new 3140 in the foreseeable future:

. Sennheiser HD-598 Headphones (Cream and Wood ones -- VERY classy looking with excellent sound -- my current HD-650's sound better though, but they're staying out there in the living room -- the HD-598's will be used in the bedroom and will be used for movie duty with the home theater rig as well)

. BlueSound NODE 2 Music Player Streamer
. Synology Server with Two Hard Disks (about 6 TB Total at about 3 TB Each)
. Apple iPad Mini 4 (with 128 GB Storage)
. Pioneer or Technics Quartz-Locked Direct-Drive Fully Automatic Turntable with suitable Phono Cartridge.

Now, what I would like to know is where could I find an original brochure and owner's manual for my 3140??

I have such information now, but they're the photo copied version and I would prefer the nicer looking ones in a downloadable PDF if at all possible.

If not, then the ones that I already have will have to suffice.

And also, did anyone of you had your 3140's rebuilt, serviced, and upgraded before?

If so, who would the vendor or technician be that would perform that type of work?

Being that you don't find 3140's floating around out there anymore, so, if the need should ever arise, I would prefer to have my 3140 redone rather than to replace it with something that isn't as good (though, the 3150 is nice too -- dual mono configuration -- but the 3140 has a nicer phono section).

Thank You In Advance.

And I also appreciate the warm welcomes indeed.

Happy NAD Ownership.

--Charles--

 

[TomReceiver]

Since this is still going on I'll add my little piece. It's a NAD 1020a pre/amp and I love it. I've had both Onkyo P-301,P-3150V, Sony ES- 2000 Processor, Dynaco Pat-4 and by far the smoothest sound I've gotten is the match between the NAD and Adcom gfa-555. My only minor complaint it does not have remote capabilities.

 

[kjello]

"Now, what I would like to know is where could I find an original brochure and owner's manual for my 3140??"

You might find something here:

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/3140.shtml

 

[NAD80]

HiFi Engine.com has the Owners and Service Manuals. Just register and download for free. The 3140 sounds great. Have had one from new. Impressed a friend who had Snell type A's, Class A amp at the time. The 3140 powering the Snells with the Denon TT, Moving Coil cartridge.
http://www.vintageshifi.com/repertoire-pdf/Nad.php Another web site for information.

 

[Ilikevinyl]

"Now, what I would like to know is where could I find an original brochure and owner's manual for my 3140??"

You might find something here:

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/3140.shtml

Yes, I found my 3140 manuals at that site. They have tons of free manuals there!

 

[BillJGW]

I just got my Leesonic NAD 1020 preamp a couple of weeks ago, so am new to the brotherhood. It is doing able duty right now but is only powering the amp section from my Onkyo TX-870 while my power amp search continues.

 

[darklife]

Got my first NAD in trade for fixing a friends laptop, an 7140. I've owned Marantz stereos before, lots of Pioneers, previous setup was a small Sherwood S-9200CP which also was a good unit but felt I needed a bit more power. The NAD simply blows the others out of the water besides possibly my old Marantz 1200, but that's not a fair comparison considering the Marantz could handle 100WPC RMS with ease, but that was far too much power for my needs and it started growing some serious issues with its age.
My main complaint with the NAD is the god awful colors and look they had. Don't scold me now, but these units didn't really look good with intermingled equipment, they seemed to be suited only to other NADs stacked or else the green power button and the yellow/green looking display just looks out of place. Either way it holds a deep spot in my heart/ears now.
It seems to easily overpower my Jamo Cornet 40III speakers on bass peaks which is funny since they are rated at far higher power than the NAD should supposedly put out. Together with my KLH speakers on A+B it sounds sweet with rock music and the stereo handles it easily since it can drive down to 2 ohms if need be! I have to set the EQs at middle point and turn off Bass EQ or else one loud low pitch bass piece will literally send the damage at me like projectiles if not careful. The headroom of these stereos are insane. This one comes in at 3db headroom above the rated 40 watts RMS.

The receiver deserves its own post alone! I originally connected a folded dipole antenna to the 300 ohm inputs and it performed okay. Picked up equally as well as my Radio Shack DX398 AM/FM/LW/SW radio which is a DX portable I compare most everything else to for it's incredible sensitivity.
Went to a 75 ohm cable to a dipole w/o balun second test since the 75 ohm input is direct to the receiver input stages. Good improvement, but I got to thinking if there was even something better.
Finally wound up making a "quad" FM loop antenna going to coax to the stereo. I can't even explain the difference. Every spot on the dial has a station. Able to pull in collage radio stations 60 miles away running under 100 watts of power. Plus I can null out the local radio station to increase selectivity. This stereo is a DX beast! Just sad there are only 5 preset buttons, but I mostly set them to be 5 divisions of the tuner band so I can hit a button and be within the region I want to bandscan.
When I own a stereo that isn't only on par, but can beat the performance of my DX398 radio, I know I have a keeper.
AM is fairly decent too, nice open bandwidth with audio fidelity out to around 6-8kHz. Seems nicely sensitive but not that special to write more on about. Haven't tried an outdoor longwire for that yet though so maybe I am missing out on another surprise.

BTW sorry if off topic, but anyone interested in a killer antenna for FM build yourself this.. http://mikestechblog.com/ubuntu-antenna/build-an-indoor-fm-antenna-with-these-plans/
Beats a dipole or a j-pole (which is nothing more than an end fed dipole) every time.

 

[leesonic]

Got my first NAD in trade for fixing a friends laptop, an 7140. I've owned Marantz stereos before, lots of Pioneers, previous setup was a small Sherwood S-9200CP which also was a good unit but felt I needed a bit more power. The NAD simply blows the others out of the water besides possibly my old Marantz 1200, but that's not a fair comparison considering the Marantz could handle 100WPC RMS with ease, but that was far too much power for my needs and it started growing some serious issues with its age.

Your posting should be quoted whenever all these NAD haters pop up. The fact that you got this receiver in a trade, and yet felt that it sounded so much better than the others is a testament to the original design parameters of their equipment. Sure, they look plain and austere. Maybe they didn't use the best components all the time, although you will see Philips, Hitachi, RCA and Motorola transistors inside. But they put people in touch with the MUSIC for a very reasonable cost. And the fact they are still doing this 20, 30 or even 40 years later is the very reason people like myself restore them.

Lee.

P.S. I think I will be building one of your antennas, I may PM you later.

 

[BillJGW]

As I posted earlier, I have one of Leesonic's NAD 1020 preamps and am quite satisfied with it. I have not been able to really give it the acid test as I am just using it to drive the amp section from my Onkyo TX-870 receiver. I can tell you that it whomps the pre section of the Onkyo receiver in transparency and tonal balance.

This will be changing as Leesonic is restoring a NAD 2600 power amp for me as I type. If all goes well, I should have it in a couple of weeks. With Lee's usual high standards of workmanship, I'm expecting a quality product and am eagerly looking forward to a listen. I'll post again after I get it and run it in for awhile.

 

[msskks]

While this guy usually bench tests car audio equipment, he has been branching out into vintage home audio. He recently tested a couple of NAD pieces, a 7240 receiver and a 2200 amp. You can jump to the end for the results, but I will tell you that they more than doubled rated continuous power at 1% thd.

7240PE 10:45 for bench summary for those who can't wait
2200PE jump to 10:20 for summary

I'm waiting for his Proton D1200 to make it to the bench.

Mike

 

[a_retent]

So 2-3 years ago I "stumbled" into the NAD club when a co-worker approached me and said; "I hear you're a stereo guy!" Geez I hate that phrase, kinda like being a doctor or lawyer at a party when people find out, so I cautiously said yes waiting for the I got this problem with my system question. Much to my surprise he said he had some old speakers and stereo stuff his wife wants him to get rid of because she wants the space, he isn't using it and it damned sure wasn't going back in the livingroom after she got it all pushed into the basement. At the time I reluctantly engaged and asked what kind of equipment he had. He started off talking about a pair of older polk speakers that sat on the floor cuz they were a little too big to put on stands....okay?! I said. Next was the electronics and all he could remember was... AND, DNA, NAD one of those anyway....again I respond with okay?!
I recommended he get the model numbers to me and I would research some prices and get back to him.

This what he gave me:
Polk
SDA SRS 3.1 TL

NAD
1300 pre-amp
3300 cassette deck
4300 FM tuner
5300 CD player
2600a power amps x2

Alrighty then!
My next question to him.....how much do you want?
"Well...I really want to go deer hunting this year and the wife wants this shit outta the house anyways so let's say $300 for everything?"

Not all of it is pristine, had to fix a couple of things, cd transport/lens could use a cleaning, care less about the cassette and tuner, pots and switches on the pre could use a cleaning but for now it works. Hell, $300.00 for just the pair of 2600a would of been worth it. So this my secondary system in our livingroom along with a bunch of other toys like dbx, lexicon, yaqin, audiocontrol. I traded the Polks to my kid for a pair of Ohm Walsh 2s that we worked on together which you can read about here:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/ohm-walsh-2-recap.476389/

 

[leesonic]

While this guy usually bench tests car audio equipment, he has been branching out into vintage home audio. He recently tested a couple of NAD pieces, a 7240 receiver and a 2200 amp. You can jump to the end for the results, but I will tell you that they more than doubled rated continuous power at 1% thd.

7240PE 10:45 for bench summary for those who can't wait
2200PE jump to 10:20 for summary

I'm waiting for his Proton D1200 to make it to the bench.

Mike

I can't say I'm surprised. Back in the day, they tested the old 3020 and found it would put out short bursts of 20A into a 2 ohm load. I have Stereo Review reviews of the 3020, 3140 and 7150 (I think), and they all hit way above their power.

Lee.

 

[Jonesy09]

You know, I think this thread is about NAD owners posting pictures and reviews of their equipment. If you have problems with a piece of equipment, maybe you might want to start your own thread?

Lee.

I realize this is resurrecting and old thread but being a new first time owner of a NAD I'm glad I found it. And while I am appreciative of the loads of tech info in this thread I concur with Lee's sentiment. There does not appear to be 'juicy' pic filled thread for NAD gear like there is for Yamaha, Marantz, Pioneer, etc..., and perhaps NAD predetermined that by their own design.

That said, I got my own piece of the turf recently. Based on reputation alone I traded a Nak receiver and a bit of cash for a 1020. The price was right to get a serviceable preamp in front of my Yamaha M-2 to push newly acquired (and soon to be modded) Polk Monitor 7C's.

I heard this in the sellers home with a 3W tube amp on AR 3a's. Very clean and strong. Once plugged into my rig I'm very happy. Surprisingly so. I was looking for a stop gap on the way to a Yamaha C-4 to match the M-4 but this NAD is sounding very nice in this rig. It has me wondering about getting ti restored.

 

[kjello]

My NAD 218 THX's effortlessly driving the Magnepan 3.6/R speakers.
The 218's are absolutely limitless in the low octaves, also noticed by Robert J. Reina of Stereophile when these amps where reviewed may 2004 (worth a read) These amps are also totally noise free.

23 kg's / 51 lbs of audio gold a piece. Holmgren 1,8 kVA toroidal transformer inside 11 kg / 24 lbs.
US version rated 225WPC, european 230V version 200WPC

With the 1kHz toneburst signal test Stereophile performed: 247wpc into 8 ohms, which almost doubles to 484wpc into 4 ohms, 950wpc into 2 ohms, and 1555wpc into a 1 ohm load.

IMO they sound their very best with soft clipping circuit OFF and in the first 10 WPC running class A from input to output.
Im not bridging mine, just run one channel for midrange/bass panel and one for tweeter ribbon, one left-amp and one right-amp.
Best part is people are almost giving them away for free. Totally underrated.
These are staying with me

 

[Jonesy09]

Forgot to add pics....

 

[Phillyfisher]

Ok, I’m gonna keep this thread going. Really enjoying the gamble I took on an eBay, for parts 7100. Lucky for me it was an easy fix, with some fuses, makes me wonder what happened to it in its previous life. Not more than about 30 minutes into having it up and running, I’m hearing parts of music I haven’t heard before. Now, everyone says wait until you recap it- that’s crazy talk. I’m in.

 

[teal'c]

Can't say it's crazy until you've recapped it. Just because it's good now doesn't mean it can't be better.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/re-capping-motivations-considerations-results.88321/

My NAD 218 THX's
Best part is people are almost giving them away for free. Totally underrated.

Sounds great, but I haven't even seen one for sale.

 

[kjello]

Can't say it's crazy until you've recapped it. Just because it's good now doesn't mean it can't be better.




Sounds great, but I haven't even seen one for sale.

Sorry to say, looks like they are pretty rare in the US, another underrated alternative would be the immortal 2600 or 2700 THX, they are more common in the states, with a 8 ohm speaker you have a very powerful mono amp when bridged 400 clean watts (2700THX)

 

[teal'c]

Ah, that's OK then. My main amp is a 2400. Wasn't given away, but well worth what I paid for it. It was actually one of a pair I was planning on bridging, but I didn't win the other one. I wasn't bothered by losing after I hooked it up. It runs my 4 ohm AT-15s so well two would have been overkill.