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NAD Reliability

There seems to be a global pressure to push out new electronics at ever increasing rate with most of the production being done in low cost Asian countries specially China. NAD always has been a high value company making musical components at a fraction of most of the competition. I was on the band wagon in 1979 to purchase their musical integrated classic. It seemed to last forever till giving up the ghost in this century as part of 3rd system. However, I have heard rumors that their most modern offerings are suffering less quality control and/or lower reliability. Specifically has anyone had reliability problems with their flagship M3 Integrated and if so were you satisfied with service quality and cost?
nanderson
nanderson OP
291 posts
 
Thanks for the updates and insight !
maineiac
649 posts
 
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.
bongofury
1,160 posts
 
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.
hieule5
115 posts
 
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.
hieule5
115 posts
 
I guess it's very much the luck of the draw. My experience with NAD so far has been neutral. I purchased a cheap NAD amp that did not have any problems during 5 years of ownership and it still sounds great at my Mom's.

I purchased a more expensive NAD unit last year and had problem with the power switch from day one, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I purchased from David at DMC Electronics in Calif. before and I would buy from him again. Just google his store name and you will find him.

Decent price, decent service, and a nice guy to deal with.
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