Funny; I posted a thread just two weeks ago, asking for opinions about the vintage NAD Monitor Series gear, and got only two responses, both pretty dismissive.
I’ve owned a late 1990s NAD 7600 Monitor Series receiver for almost 30 years. Well, to be precise, my first 7600 I used almost every day for exactly 24 years; when it finally began to fail in 2021, I found another on eBay that had been stored for most of its life in the original packaging that has delighted me ever since. And I have some very well-heeled (and generous) audiophile friends, so I’ve been able to compare its sound quality to a variety of far more expensive and "elite" integrated amps. The NAD 7600 sounded more "musical" than anything I compared it to in my listening space and with my other components. Instrumental timbre is very realistic (I play guitar and cello, my wife plays piano, my daughter violin; I can compare recordings to the real instruments in the same space); sound stage is wide and deep; instrumental locations are precise and stable; for rock music, bass is tight and tuneful and very impactful. And this unit is amazingly flexible, with very useful semi-parametric tone controls, a powered balance control one can adjust with the well-designed remote; an outstanding phono circuit—oh yeah, and an outstanding tuner section. The preamp and power amp are the same as what was then NAD’s top separates, just assembled on one chassis. IMHO, this is an outstanding bit of kit.
