Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions NAD C375BEE, any good???

First please if the mods consider this thread out of place, please feel free to place it in the right place, I did not find any other section more related than this one...But please if you do, let me know where did you place it, so I could find it later, OK???

I'm looking into upgrading my Marantz PM7200, and this one came across my way, the NAD C375BEE, I saw also a couple of Yamaha in the Magnolia section of Best Buy but nothing to dream about, even while I may get a good deal, I'm not 100% convinced yet that is what will make me happy, it is not an eye candy amp...LOL...so I'm open also to any other suggestions in the 1K mark (not above)


Features I'm interested in:

- Discrete Class A operation (not a must, but will be good to have it)
- Stereo (not multichannel, unfortunately I have no space for any other setup other than stereo, and will not pay for features I will not use)
- Pre-outs a must for sub-woofer use...
- Tones must defeatable or better none...
- 5 way binding posts on the speaker outs (not pins or any other crap)


Features I'm not interested, and prefer not to get:

- No vintage, has to be a recent production amp with support from the manufacturer (and if possible extended service plans) what fail in the amps are usually the most stupid things...
- For that same reason absolutely no tubes (no time for hunting tubes)
- No separates, I prefer to have an integrated amp for practical reasons.
- No receivers (I have no time to listen radio, I have enough music already)



Hope I will find some guidance in this regard, and I know we have quite few very knowledgeable members here that can give me a hand on that...



Thanks for the help in any case...

I don't know a lot about this sort of thing, but my first thought is Outlaw Audio's RR2150. How close is this to what you want?

I have always wanted a Blue Circle amp. They are expensive though. I think that brand will fit your list well.

Power. Stereo. No wasteful features.

Hello Sovkiller,

Integrated amplifiers are fairly rare birds these days. NAD has been building quality stereo integrateds for years now.

I wouldn't worry about having Class A circuitry. It's extremely wasteful power-wise, as about 80% of the energy used is wasted in heat since the output devices remain on all the time. Well designed Class A/B amplifiers have inaudible distortion and the era of "notch" distortion ended years ago.

Likewise, a tuner chip costs the manufacturer a few cents and its presence doesn't degrade audio performance. If you look for stereo receivers, you will have greater choice. Harman/Kardon builds a couple of reasonable well-equipped stereo receivers with phono stages and subwoofer outputs:

http://www.harmankardon.com/EN-US/Products/Pages/ProductCompare.aspx

Axiom sells Sherwood Newcastle, whose amplifier stages are very robust. The RX-770 stereo receiver will even drive our 4-ohm M80 towers without overheating or shut-down problems.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/sherwood_rx770.html

It's $299 including delivery.

Regards,

One thing I really appreciate about integrated amps is the separate tuner. It seems like - even with high quality receivers - you can always hear a small amount of FM bleeding through to other sources.

Yes, that's with significant gain and no signal on the other source, but it still bugs me.

If you don't want separates and don't want vintage, I don't think you're going to have very many choices.

I should think that a stereo pre-amp and a separate power amp would give you much more to choose from.

Hi guys:

It seems that class A is ruled out, as nobody wants to put a little money into that...LOL...honestly I do not care about wasting energy, we waste here in US millions in stupid things, so a few bucks a month will not break our bank, the truth is that the sound is better, at least my placebo brain tells me that...but as Allan says you can get good AB amps...nothing against vintage except reliability, 30+, 20+ is too much time looking for troubles...

I'm still looking, and given that the class A was ruled out, I dropped the price point as well, right now I have two more options than the NAD:

Cambridge Audio 650A
Music Hall 25.2

Sorry Allan, but I want something more refined than a receiver, maybe a matter of just looks, but personally as tom stated i could always pick the stupid radio sounding while there is no sound on the selection, it is like the switch section they design and use, have still a common ground as opposed to cut everything in the audio path to avoid that, the main reason i use an external switch that cuts everything so while listening to one source, I'm only listening ot that source...

The outlaw is a terrific amp, probably one of the best out there but the look is horrible, no way you can match that thing to anything, unless you want it just to play the FM radio, on the speakers....

Sov, you listed your requirements, but didn't really indicate in what specific way that your PM7200 was unsatisfactory and needed to be "upgraded". Some of the units that you've mentioned might have a slightly higher maximum output capacity, but there doesn't appear to be anything that would be an audible improvement.

Just put it this way, if I can get the same sound of the Marantz in any other amp with more juice, and pre-out, that's is all I'm looking for, of course if better a plus...

Marantz has no pre-out and I'm planning to get a EP500 from the good Allan with no luck yet...LOL...I know it has speaker out level inputs but the Marantz is already overloaded in 4 ohms and the sub, and it gets really hot with that total load, to the point that you can barely touch it, so I'm assuming that this is not a good sign, and one of these days it will kiss ..... goodbye

Tom, I was a bit puzzled by the FM bleed-through that you mentioned, because I've never experienced that with any receiver. Just to see if maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, I checked out the two receivers that I have hooked up at the moment. I tuned in one of the appallingly loud local bad music stations and then switched to various unused inputs(CD, TV, etc.)and turned the volume(not "gain", that's fixed)to the maximum setting. With my ear a few inches from the speaker there was no FM audible.

The only bleed I've gotten from FM is on, well, vintage equipment. That said, I understand the romantic aspect of what you're looking for. If it makes you happy, go with the NAD. Sounds like it's up your alley.