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NAD 3020 reputation

I have heard an awful lot of inexpensive vintage amps over the past 5 years. The NAD 3020 remains my benchmark.

All of the original 30_0 series series had the same designer and sound good in my experience. They have easily outperformed any later NAD I have heard (I have not heard the current models).

The 3020 and others in that series were designed by Bjorn Erik Edvardsen (BEE), have soft clipping which can be switched out, and are NOT labelled "Power Envelope". I believe that the sound went downhill when BEE left (to Electrocompaniet?) and NAD introduced the "Power Envelope" circuitry.

There are better amps but they still sound better than most current equipment and 3020's are readily available. You can pay a lot more money for highly regarded equipment that sounds worse. The 3020 is one of the few cheap amps that people with really good equipment can generally be happy to listen to on an extended basis.

I would expect a good 3020 or anything else in that 30x0 series to easily outperform your 7130.


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