NAD C275BEE Power Amp $1300 (150×2, 6h, 17 1/8w, 15d, 33 lbs)
This fantastic power amp has been back ordered for months. With the array of great gear NAD makes, this CLASSIC SERIES two channel, class AB power amp sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. They have spent their resources making other “more hip” products and have just caught up on C275BEE.
If you’re after a battleship of a power amp at an affordable price, think CLASSIC NAD. Further, C275BEE can be bridged and delivers 330w per chassis, monoblock. This AB amp harkens back to a day where power amps were supreme beasts of burden. There were precious few tricks of the trade. It was mostly blood and guts. That’s what this beast is all about.
The sound of C275BEE is extremely muscular. The weight that this gorilla delivers is like a sledgehammer. It has the CLASSIC warm, round, powerful sound you’ve come to love from NAD.
If you would love a McIntosh or Bryston but $7k just isn’t in the cards, please consider C275BEE. It is the epitome of the ultimate AB performance at the law of diminishing returns.
Don’t hold it against this amp that it’s a CLASSIC design! The 150×2 rating into 8 ohms doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. THD is at scant levels = .008%! Due to NAD’s patented PowerDrive & Soft Clipping technology (a couple of useful tricks are employed!) C275BEE peaks at double its rated power and is stable down to two ohms, so it can drive any speaker.
Even if you hit it hard, Soft Clipping keeps the sound palatable. An amp driving music under control will pass a nice looking square wave. If you abuse/clip the amp, the top right portion of the square gets ragged and sounds distorted- just like when you turn your car stereo up too high. That’s your amp clipping. Soft Clipping from NAD is a patented circuit which rolls off the spikes = hard edge. The music stays smooth and not grossly distorted.
It will give you big time ummph with Maggies for example- that you’d never expect the speakers to be capable of. It is quiet enough to be used with the high efficiency Klipsches. And it has the dynamics and warmth to make GoldenEars sound twice as expensive as their price tag implies.
By the way BEE stands for Bjorn Erik Edvarsson, NAD’s point dog designer. He assigns the moniker BEE for products especially close to his heart.
C275BEE uses great quality parts- a Holmgren Toroidal transformer (ideal for Packer fans!), discrete circuitry, class A voltage stage & distortion cancellation circuitry.
NAD C165BEE Stereo Preamp $1000
C165BEE is the perfect companion for C275BEE above. It too was on back order for several months. We’re delighted to have this CLASSIC stereo preamp back in the fold. We missed it. It has an outstanding phono section, headphone amp and extremely useful tone controls to boot.
Take a look at our Nov 2018 newsletter where we provide the details on this guy.
Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961)
Sir-Thomas-Beecham-1946