Unbelievable !!

[Lord_Magnepan]

Today some more pieces of my 2 Channel have arived. The Magnepan MG 3.6R the Krell KSA-150 etc... still waiting on my Jolida Pre AMP.

I borrowed a NAD 320BEE to use as a preamp with the Krell untill the Jolida came. I have tried for hrs and hrs to get the Maggies to image right. All failed !!! It just doesnt make sense since my other 3.6 setup works wonderfully on lesser electronics.

I hooked up my friends cheap Sony 2ES Receiver up to it (switched to 4 ohms) ....and volia....the stage was there the instruments...what the heck is wrong with the NAD 320BEE... i never liked sony and its ofcourse not compareable to the Krell and Jolida, but i am sure as heck impressed with it now.

Cant wait till the Jolida gets here, but for now...the sony es is quite good.

Cheers

[RGA]

My dealer has has numerous problems with the soundstage of the 320Bee - I listened to it and it is not right. The thing is trying to have that out of box sound and it almost as though it is out of phase (only that;s not the problem). If my audition is like yours and a number of others I would say that this is a downright BAD amplifier. Gets good reviews though????

Doesn't present a proper center stage.

[Lord_Magnepan]

LOL......it doesnt present a stage at all. Its a bunch of out of phase blurr.

[RGA]

The Dianna Krall disc didn't place her properly in the center - it's like the amp just pushes her out the two speakers (like two mono sounds).

The Rotel RA1 we compared it to didn't have this problem - but it had that high frequency grain - though for the money it was pretty nice. The NAD didn't have the grain - but it sounded lifeless - and the stage? Weird because I don't remember these problems with other NAD amps.

[gonefishin]

The NAD didn't have the grain - but it sounded lifeless - and the stage? Weird because I don't remember these problems with other NAD amps.

Lifeless and muffled is exactly the way I would describe a couple of NAD components, especially from several of their CD players. Not a popular position to have around these parts, but what can ya do?


happy holidays,
dan

[Lord_Magnepan]

The NAD i used to have (4 yrs ago) on small Maggies had a nice soundstage but lacked power. I personally think that the Cambridge Audio C500 and P500 combination for 500 bucks is the best deal out there. At least the best i found ;-)

-Flo

[dvjorge]

because Bjorn Erik Edvardsen who designed the 320BEE is the same guy who designed the legendary 3020 which is one the best integrated amplifier ever build and is in the hi-fi fame hall. Try positining well the speakers. Planars are hard to place to get the right sound. If not, it could be interesting to email Nad to see what they can argument about it.
Jorge

[Lord_Magnepan]

Trust me its not the setup ;-)

I have 3 Planar setups, and the only one who had that "crap" sound was with the NAD. Many others in the asylum said the same thing about the 320BEE. I currently use a Sony ES Receiver which does a heck of a better job than that NAD. Once my Jolida gets hear i can switch to my Krell.....

The problem is the NAD. I have no idea why, but its truly horrible.

-Flo

PS: Maybe the integrated AMP is very good, but the pre amp section is bad.

[kexodusc]

I've been asking about this amp alot myself, and to date I still haven't heard the troublesome issues in store with units I've personally demoed, but our local dealer has told me since the last time the situation came up here that they've had a few complaints and that units were swapped. No word on the results.
Is this a design flaw or a quality control issue?

[dvjorge]

Why does this amplifier almost have 5 start in all reviews ? Who knows. It also was reviewed by What HI-FI, Stereophile, and other magazines. What you read is good things about it. This is a rare case. By the way, I don't own the 320 BEE only curious about it.

Jorge

[RGA]

My dealer asked about that because he knew this designer made the prior popular unit Dvjorge speaks of - My dealer has carried NAD almost since NAD has been selling amps. He tired contacting NAD the designer - to figure out if NAD cheaped out somewhere on the production line.

NAD interestingly has had a less than stellar history on quality control sending out the odd clunkers. I think they get in trouble when a certain unit gets in high demand becuase perhaps they can't keep up with orders or that one inespensive product is selling too much to keep profits up. I dunno but my dealer sent them all back.

And interestingly Terry said that the New Brystons exhibit a similar trait - he's carried Bryston for many years as well - strange. At least the NAD is cheaper than a Bryston 3BSST. Although Bryston does have that extra air which can sound a bit fake with some speakers and they can overcontrol some speakers as well. UHF was the only publication to be honest about it though.

[Motoracer5]

mine sounded like crap when i got er home too. Sounded a lot better with the speakers hooked up backwards (positive to negative). Still dont sound great, but hooked up proper it was so f**ked up it gave me a headache