Beware of NAD M3 Fire Hazard

Well I tried. Here’s nad’s response:

Unfortunately, as this amp appears to have been bought second hand through a non-authorised reseller, we cannot verify its past history or conclude what alterations or repairs may have been made to the amp before you received it -- all NAD product sold from authorized retailers are given a full Quality Check before resale which is necessary, whereas when bought elsewhere we cannot guarantee this. We have not heard any other reports of this sort of event happening with the M3.

I'm apologise that I am unable to help further, but please let me know if you have any further questions.

Kind regards,
Sam R.,
Support Crew Analyst

No manufacturer is going to warranty something that has been tampered with. But its also easy to ascertain that such a thing happened. If it were me, since the unit is worthless as it now sits, I would send it to them with a note explaining that perhaps they could examine it and make a determination (with documentation) as to why they think its been tampered with. At that point you would be rid of it unless they saw clear to sort it out; if not in warranty a repair estimate should precede that.


At least in the case of my car, dealer/manufacturer repairs to it are not more expensive than an independent shop. If that amp was doing the job for you the cheapest way though this might simply be to get it fixed correctly.

The lid was off. Tampered? Depends on whose defining it, lol

The newer NAD products, users have reported reliability issues as posted in the forums over a period of time. They, NAD rested on their earlier reputation of building reliable good sounding units for the money which is certainly not the case now for some units.

After some research it appears the M3 was designed by NADs director of  advanced development, Bjorn Eric Edvardson in China.

It also appears that there is not too many reported issues other than one I could find which was described by the owner as switching to stand-by mode while listening to music or switching off while in standby mode. A tech posted that he thought a leaky capacitor in the protection circuitry was the issue.