Home Blog Services Ampli ers About us Discography 

NAD is a great audio company and has made a number of very notable, and now vintage, ampli ers. Their philosophy has been driven by making their ampli ers sound
“musical”, though at a price point that us mere humans can afford. One of their key innovations is using a dual rail power supply with two voltages, with the higher rail
providing a reserve of power that is used for musical transients.

NAD makes very good ampli ers, the circuits are well thought out and the core components well considered. In some of their models their choice of components has been
driven by cost, and as such replacing these with modern components does return a noticeable bene t.

The power ampli er NAD 2200 is described on another page.

Their NAD 3020 is recognized as a classic, probably the best small power (20watts per channel) integrated transistor ampli er made. They still attract good prices second
hand, and are often used as pre amps for larger power ampli ers.When refurbished they sound spectacular.

Technical analysis

The original NAD 2200 included 4 printed circuit boards:

Input board ( two major variations)

Power supply board
Main amp boards (2- one left MAL and one right MAR)

These boards were common among the NAD 2200, NAD 2600 and NAD 2700 family of ampli ers. As each new model evolved from the original NAD 2200, the circuit
and some of the boards evolved as well. Each of these is considered below. The circuit design appears to be Class G, which is well described in the technical literature and
has the premise that a musical transient may require additional ampli cation for a short period, which is delivered by higher voltage rails operating additional output
devices. The general criticism leveled at this approach is the “switching” between the rails, though with modern Schotty diodes this can be mitigated to a large extent. The
results is an ampli er that has great dynamics and head room at a reasonable price point.

Please read the recent review by Audiocience Review at:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/nad-2200-vintage-ampli er-review.13960/

Original NAD 2200: These generally have serial numbers starting with 5XXX, and are simply marked as NAD2200 on the front panel. These are the original circuit and
the main ampli er boards are marked as MAL 593 and MAR 593 which is located at the rear edge of the board. The picture below shows an unrestored NAD 2200. In this
example the large power supply caps can be seen to bulge, and there is quite some rust and dirt to be cleaned out. The input board on this model is an SW 594.

NAD 2200 power envelope: The NAD 2200 power envelope (NAD2200PE) has “power envelope” printed on the front panel, and has serial number starting in the 6XXX
range. These can have three types of main board, the MAL and MAR 593A, MAL and MAR 593B and MAL and MAR 593C. Each of these differ slightly in circuit
con guration, with the C series boards having additional components on the output side. The input boards also differ with some additional circuitry and better quality
passive components. The input board is the SW 594C. Shown here is a 2200PE with B series boards that has been upgraded, based on the 2600/2700 upgrades with
some further improvements in the components.

NAD 2600: this is an evolution of the NAD 2200 with series “C” main amp boards and upgraded input board with additional transistors regulating the 18v supply rails.
This is the SW 692 board. These upgrades included providing front panel volume controls for each channel and replacing the metal front panel of the 2200 series with a
plastic panel. The main power rails have been raised to 72v, from the 65v of the 2200 series, enabling NAD to claim a power output of 150w per channel compared to the
claimed 100w of the NAD 2200. This additional voltage is provided by a different transformer, which has switchable taps for different impedance speaker arrangements
on the rear.

unrestored 2600

The picture above is an unrestored 2600, and the picture below the detail of the restored 2600 power amp board.

restored 2600

restored 2600 main amp PCB

NAD 2700: This is a further evolution of the 2200-2600, using the transformer and lifted voltages, and output of the 2600, though with additional capacitance in certain
circuit positions and use of higher quality components as well. I suspect all of these modi cations were to ensure compliance with the THX standards that is ampli er
meets.

unrestored 2700

Above is the unrestored 2700 and below the restored 2700 undergoing bench tests.

Restored 2700

There is also the 2100 and 2400, which share a common layout and design, though they were much more cost consciously focused on a price point, being good value, but
not as well designed and made as the 2200/2600/2700 series.

© 2020 QuirkAudio.    