NAD 3030 experience

@erik_squires 

I was first super impressed. I am total sucker for the vintage look. But then I compared it with the 3030. Much cleaner look. And the led is just awful. that's so 80s. The designer should be arraigned!

The reason I asked this in this post is that I bid on a 3030 on ebay and besides the looks I hope it sounds good too.

I worked at a store that dealt in NAD in the mid 70s when Peter Treibman, formerly with Advent, became the US importer.  The 3030 was the base integrated amp and we liked it…but the failure rate was such that instead of New Acoustic Dimensions we began calling it Not Always Defective!  As I recall it was usually the round push buttons that got stuck and caused a channel to drop.  This sort of thing was not rare back then. H-K receivers were flaky too.  Pioneer, Sansui, Yamaha…much better QC.

@crustycoot 

Good to know! I will probably pass on it then

I heard in the darko interview that NAD sold millions of 3020s. And I owned Marantz amps from the same time period, that all worked amazingly well.

I don't think the design has ever been as stunning as in the 70s. Probably the golden age of industrial design in general.

I had two NAD 3020's back in '78-81. $199 each! Used as single-channel amps for the midrange and treble of an active crossover bi-amp speaker system. The bass was handled by two Audionics CC2 amps, one per channel. Never had any trouble with the two 3020's.

It's interesting to read comments on NAD product from 40 years ago- and people applying their experience from a lifetime ago with a $200 amp at the time to what a new NAD amp may or may not be...