NAD 3020: The Hi-Fi World's First Affordable Audiophile Integrated Amplifier
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2022
- This episode sees the guys discussing what's probably the greatest affordable audiophile amplifier ever - the original and best NAD 3020!
Combining superb sound for the money with handy features and great load driving ability, this budget bruiser set the late nineteen seventies and early eighties hi-fi world on fire...
It sold in vast numbers, proving that the customer is always right. Mike and David recall their own experiences, and decide that it was their 'gateway drug' to serious, high end hi-fi.
Each episode of Hi-Fi Riff features their unedited, unexpurgated views about all manner of weird and wonderful hi-fi designs. Mike has a wealth of knowledge from his hi-fi retail years, and David has written about hi-fi for thirty years. Now Editor-in-Chief of StereoNET, he's picked up a few things along the way.
So brew up a cuppa or crack open a can, and relax and enjoy some one-take hi-fi riffing - and please leave your comments below. Oh, and don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button, this one goes up to eleven!
The eighties-tastic title tune is called ‘UFO/Mike’s Jumper’, and used with the express permission of our old pal and rights holder Simon Lythe.
To read David's retro review of this iconic amp, click here:
zstereo.co.uk/2014/08/31/nad-...
Bringing back memories of late 82 during my 1st year A level in Birkenhead and the set up was the Rega Planar 3,NAD 3020 and Mission 700 speakers with QED 79 speaker cables.It was highly musical and spent hours of listening late into the night and never got tired of it.
I remember being an eight year old kid with my dad hearing a NAD 3020 plugged into a pair of Acoustic Research (20s?) in a HiFi Market dealer. The music was a direct to vinyl recording of the legendary drummer Jim Keltner playing solo. I was simply mesmerised by what I was hearing. I later went on to own a 3020 and become a professional drummer. Says it all really!
A stone-cold classic! One of my uncles bought one of these in 1982 and still has it (or perhaps one of the cousins has it). The first amp I bought was the NAD 302 (perhaps its spiritual successor?) from a Richer Sounds in 1993 for the princely sum of £169! It was also a gem and never missed a beat during the time I owned it (sold in 2008!)
Precisely. "Good enough for the girls we date", as they say in Texas.
I think they sold. Million of these things. Literally:)
Dave & Mike! I love your channel.
Just picked up a 3020e from the inlaws and prepping for my son. It's absolutely immaculate and has had little use, quite exited to hear it after all these years.
Great video guys. My first system was a 3020e, Dual CS505-2, Mordaunt Short MS25i's. 40 years and many upgrades later I'm yet to match the sheer joy of the details it revealed in my record collection for the first time. Probably the best legal bang for buck sound improvement ever lol.
Happy days!
Absolutely. Has there ever been anything better in terms of "sound per pound" than a NAD 3020?
A school friend also had the 3020 with Dual 505 - don't recall the speakers. I really enjoyed that system and even his mix tapes had that signature NAD sound :) I remember he loved heavy rock and did me 'Highway to Hell' and 'Back in Black' on a C90. Wow! - still recall playing it whilst waxing my first car! Great memories. Maybe not so great for the neighbours.
I'm playing my Nad 3020 right now in my bedroom system . Marantz cd 48, Lenco L75, Goldring e3 & Imf tsl50. Sounds superb 👌
Still using mine, bought new in 1982 and now mated to a NAD C298
These are great amps . Due to their age it is now important to replace all of the electrolytic capacitors.I have re capped two and the sound is remarkably improved (use good low esr caps )
I’ve been using its offspring, the 705 Nad receiver since 1994…just love it’s plump bass. Still use it daily with Q Acoustics 3050. Fun stuff.
I bet - and "plump" is a great description of the NAD's bottom end!
Such fond memories chaps. Especially the speaker cable. Best regards.🤗😺
I remember way back that I was looking for a hifi amplifier and had a blind listening demonstration of the NAD 2030 and the Arcam Alpha. I personally thought the Arcam was the better option for me. I still have it and it works and sounds as good as the day I bought it. Each to their own!
My first ever "proper" amp was a NAD 3240PE back in 1988. It was a muscular sounding amp. Really loved it.
Another very enjoyable video - thanks!
So many memories coming back. Back in 79 I had a cheap Rotel amp and wanted to upgrade to a 'proper' British amp, so I went to Grahams Hifi and had a listen to an NAD 3020 and A&R Cambridge A60. I was blown away by both, but the A60 had the edge and I plumped for that. The A60 is another legendary amp you could do a video on.
Good suggestion. We're on the lookout...
Love these retro reviews. More plz. My new favourite channel, could watch you two talking about retro hifi kit all day!!
Please do!
Would be good to see a review of the much mentioned Isobarik / Exposure mountain (best of luck balancing any of it on your laps in order to get it in shot in front of the camera though)
Great amp love the reviews of old classic hifi es 80's kit.. More please!
Its soft clipping was such a great design aspect too, making it forgiving when over driven.
Perfect for student parties, then!
My first amplifier, with a dual 505m2 and tannoy mercury speakers .
Oh we must have met ! Had my one from new is still working great .new revamp I want to see c 3050 le . nice
Again, I had one of these before i brought the Musical Fidelity A1. These are being lorded all over the place, but i saw it as a basic starting block that what you upgraded from as soon as you could. As for the A1 I would love to hear one again especially now i have a much much better front end. I had the classic Dual 505/Nad 3020 combo with AR18 speakers.
And again great review. You are basically making a series about my HiFi youth :)
I just picked a 3020e up for £50 in really good nick. Planning to hook it to my LP12 and Celestion Ditton 15xr speakers very soon and have a listen for myself. Cheers fellas 🎶😎
Bargain of the century. Mike
Change your Celestion ditton 15xr for a pair of ditton 15(the older model-you will be blown away by how much better the older original model is!
Loved this unit.
I never really knew what the fuss was all about until one day somebody suggested using the 3020 as a pre amp in a high end setup & surprisingly, the puny 3020 massacred a 14k passlab pre amp. Music simply flowed through the 3020. It was just so much more musical though it was a tad uncouth compared to the passlab pre amp. Heads were nodding & feet were tapping. That’s what music is all about isn’t it.
Yep - only a couple of weeks ago, Mike and I were using one as a preamp and phono stage with my high end Sony TA-N86B power amp and Yamaha NS-1000M speakers. It sounded great! The power amp section was good, but the preamp section was/is superb.
Great riff guys
Great review!
Most amps with loudness have a build in circuitry with an extra pin from the volume pod that cancel out the loudness function from mid to maximum volume level, so if you pass this point, pressing or depressing the loudness button makes no audible difference, and so it is also with the NAD 3020. The loudness function is there to boost especially the lower end frequencies at low sound levels because the human ear has difficulties in hearing these at low levels. The NAD 3020 is a grate (best) amp by the way!
Love this amp.
Watched their anniversary documentary and really enjoyed and appreciated their history.
I had a 3020B I think in 1983, and yes I had the KEF Coda's, Dual CS505 II with an Ortofon cartridge too. Would have been listening to Moving Pictures and A Farewell To Kings on it as well! I wish NAD would make a modern version of the 3020 in the same outer box design, I'd buy one in a heartbeat :)
Brilliant I love nad stuff
Interesting that you say it is well built. I seem to remember the press suggesting that build quality was a bit dubious. I was just getting into hifi at the time and bought the Sansui AU217 instead as it felt more solid. I don’t know how it compared to the NAD, but it was equally a gateway drug for me!
The NAD was very well built 'under the bonnet', better than the Sansui AU217 I would argue, but had a plastic fascia which of course marked it down massively.
I use a 3020i with Kef Coda 2 speakers. I may have 1980's ears but it sounds pretty good to me.
I bought a Nad 3020a and a 4020a tuner in 1984, £104 each and a Trio dp 900 cd player and a Rotel record player, B&W dm22 speakers, speaker cable is 1.0 mm twin and earth. The speaker stands are made out of 10mm thick steel plates and scaffold tube filled with dry sand. It’s just starting to show some age by being a bit crackly, I’ll give it a squirt of electric contact cleaner in the potentiometers when I get the chance. I can’t afford to upgrade it, being a pensioner. I’m just on sawing the bannisters to burn in the living room to keep warm.
I bet that still sounds great!
Happy to send you some qed 79 strand cable as I think that would be a worthwhile upgrade 👍👍
Mike
@@Hi-FiRiff Hi there, thank you for the kind offer of the vintage de facto speaker cable, but I’ll stick to the grey 1.00mm twin and earth cable for now. If the clean up of the ‘pots’ and switches doesn’t help with the NAD system I might give my Quad 405/44 gear an airing they’ve been in their cardboard boxes since being serviced by Quad about twenty five years ago, they’re just sat in the wardrobe after Quad put new speaker posts on for me, they also converted the pre amp to rca from din sockets. I’m relegated to listening in my 16 x 8 insulated shed these days, I got kicked out of the house (listening wise) years ago. I’ll have a rearrangement in the spring when it’s warmer. Thank you.
I am still using a 3020 for speaker testing. If a speaker does not work with a 3020 then there is something conceptually wrong with the design. I am not claiming that the speaker must sound best with the 3020 but it must play fairly decent, if it does then I continue and test it with some pre/power amp setup if it does not I call it a day and forget about the speaker.
The 3020 had excellent reliability. It could take some real punishment - and often did. Eighties student parties wouldn't have been the same without it. 🙂
The Soft Clipping feature was a godsend for keeping the joint jumping into the early hours. "Club Tropicana, drinks are free..."
Came with matching tuner. The FM tuner now consigned to irrelevance, sadly
Still rocking the NAD 3225PE. Goes to show things were made to last, none of this planned obsolescence malarkey.
I should point out first that I'm in Australia. While they sounded okay, the first iteration of the 3020 was definitely not so reliable. When you opened them up to do a repair it was a bit like rummaging through a big bowl of spaghetti. As I understand it, NAD had the entire units mass produced in China and it shows. The components, in particular the electrolytic capacitors, were generally poor quality. Currently working on a 7225PE (which appears to be basically a 3020 with a tuner packed in) and by then (1988) not a lot had improved in the wiring. With regard to pricing, for example, the NAD 3020 was around the $160 mark while the Luxman SQ77T, released some years earlier, was in the same pricing bracket but a very reliable, well built unit.
3050 coming soon
Why does no one discuss "lab in" versus "normal in"; I'd like to know if there is a difference ???
I believe "normal in" allows you to adjust bass and treble levels, whilst "lab in" is a direct mode, meaning that the sound is as good as it gets from the amp. Some amps have a "Direct" button that does just that.
Nope. Normal in has rolled off extreme bass and treble whilst lab in is nominally totally flat. I just wanted to know how audible the difference is, if any.
@@nenadkojic7125 Thanks for your question, Nenad. The simple answer is that Lab In sounds noticeably better though good speakers, especially on CD or any line source that doesn't contain sub 20Hz information. The Normal In was basically another way of switching in a subsonic filter, which is a good thing with a cheap turnable and not a good thing with a high end one.
To be fair, for the sort of system the NAD 3020 was originally intended for, Normal In was better - but nutters using one with a source costing ten times as much will enjoy the Lab In feature.
Likewise, for best sound, turn Soft Clipping off!
Pioneer A400……simple
My NAD cd player was a crap box!
Since when did a gain switch become a separate MC stage from a MM stage. Price was an idiot in the 80's and nothing has changed. A £800 modern amplifier cannot match the NAD ???? A great amplifier but BS talk.
No Dave the audiophile amp was the 2200PE and I have two running as mono blocks!