Beware of NAD M3 Fire Hazard

I will never purchase an NAD product again.

EVERY product suffers one-off failures.

NAD has made millions of units with very high reliability and excellent sonics for very reasonable prices.

NAD are well engineered. Electronics are made of component sourced from dozens of manufacturers. A dozen or more maybe involved in the power supply alone. All are potential points of failure for which NAD unjustly suffers the blame.

It's possible that a line surge coupled with a weakish part at precisely the wrong moment caused the only catastrophic failure on the planet.

The probability than another NAD unit would suffer a similar fate is small.

The unit is an audio computer and computers are replaced quite frequently.  The last firmware update was a decade ago, so the unit could be nearing EOL.

Some questions:
- did you buy it new?
- was the unit left on all the time?
- what is the local line voltage? 

pwb OP9 posts  

03-15-2020  
 10:01am  

Thank you everyone for the useful information. I guess I will just have to take the loss and move on. I will never purchase an NAD product again. Anyone have a recommendation for a good integrated under 2k. It’s for a second system driving Merlin tsm-mmm speakers. Thanks.

pwb,

I wish you would take the time and contact NAD tech support here in the US. Send them the photos you provided on this thread. The photos speak volumes to the damage that was caused by the cap in the amp. Make sure you tell them the sparks were still flying when you walked into the room. Let them know if you had not been home there is no telling what the damage may have been to your home.
Be polite! .....

I would hope NAD America would want the amp to determine exactly, if possible, what caused the catastrophic event that caused the electrolytic cap to blow its’ top the way it did. I would hope NAD America would pay for the shipping.

Jim
.

I bought the unit used 3 year ago on AudiogonThe unit was never left on when not in useThe local line voltage is 110
 A cd had finished playing 20 minutes earlier and I hadn't turned off the components yet. I was in another room when I heard the noise and ran in and saw the sparks shooting out the top. The room was filled with smoke. Another minute and the house would have been on fire. Very alarming and scary.  I will try to contact NAD.

Diodes usually fail open circuit, unless the heat is so bad that the entire junction completely melts.  The only way that could happen is if the AC supply surged tremendously.  But then again, if that happened, you would have noticed other stuff breaking connected to the AC.

Was there anything on top of the amplifier which could have fell in (even a strand of hair) and shorted something ?

It could simply be a bad capacitor, from the factory. Although very rare, these may still happen.