NAD Reliability

Actually from what I understand since Lenbrook industries bought out the other owners (NAD was had several owners at one point) in 2001 reliability and quality have gone up. Their new offerings in the 2 channel area (classic series) are very nice. I have only heard of one instance of someone having and issue with an M3, that is one nice integrated. NAD has it's own factories in China, so you have critical oversight. So NAD designs it's gear in Canada and then builds it in it's factories in China. Nad was one of the first companies to design in the west and assemble in the east. Things are much different from the days when you dropped off your designs to an OEM and they did their work. I would buy the M3 with confidence and compare it's build quality and sound to amps in it's price range.

Thanks for the updates and insight !

I had an NAD receiver about 5 years ago and it gave me a ton of trouble with one of the amps. Even though it was under warranty, I had to fight with NAD to finally replace the receiver since they couldn't fix it after 3 trips to the service center and having it shipped to them. The new one has worked perfectly since and a friend is still using it. I was very dissappointed by the hassle and hoops that I had to jump through to get this thing straightened out that I vowed to never own another NAD product again. I will say that it did sound excellent.

Own it, and have not had problems with my M3. But I hear there is numerous problems with the Chinese line. I am in the hunt to replace it with a Luxman.

Per my local NAD dealer, customers return more receivers, DVD players, and CD players than the integrated amps.

Problem is labor cost is higher in China now and that's forced Lenbrook to reach out to less reputable suppliers which can only mean one thing: less quality electronics components.

My NAD guy has noticed that NAD quality has slipped a bit more than in the past, not much, but noticeable.

In addition, Lenbrook reps have pressured my NAD guy not to make it easy for customers to return their purchases which the dealer does not like at all.

On several occasions, he told me that he had to ship several crates of brand new DVD and CD players back to NAD for service.

Integrated amps are relatively more reliable since they don't have that many moving mechanism but he's said the power supplies and power switches have been the downfall of the NAD integrated amps.

I have heard that the Master line has issues too but not to the extent as the Classic line.