NAD 2200 Vintage Amplifier Review

[DWPress]

How cheap would it be to buy a new class D amplifier that would match or exceed the capabilities of the NAD 2700?

Icepower 1200AS2 implementation.

Love following this thread, I had three 2200s in use before I went with active XOs and needed to scale down amp sizes, electricity and heat.

 

[MattHooper]

Well… I decided to buy the NAD 2700 amp.

Except I was too late. Somebody snapped up both of the amplifiers before I got back to the seller. Serves me right.

And now I enter my usual regret and mourning phase of having missed out on s second hand piece of gear I decided I really wanted…

 

[Angsty]

Well… I decided to buy the NAD 2700 amp.

Except I was too late. Somebody snapped up both of the amplifiers before I got back to the seller. Serves me right.

And now I enter my usual regret and mourning phase of having missed out on s second hand piece of gear I decided I really wanted…

My sympathies go out to you. I’ve sat on my hands far too many times only to find out the equipment was gone after I was resolved. It’s always a live and learn thing.

 

[Mart68]

Well… I decided to buy the NAD 2700 amp.

Except I was too late. Somebody snapped up both of the amplifiers before I got back to the seller. Serves me right.

And now I enter my usual regret and mourning phase of having missed out on s second hand piece of gear I decided I really wanted…

In that situation I usually buy something I don't want on the rebound.

Well I used to, anyway.

 

[MattHooper]

My sympathies go out to you. I’ve sat on my hands far too many times only to find out the equipment was gone after I was resolved. It’s always a live and learn thing.

Audiophiles commiserating!

The thing that’s nagging at me is that it wasn’t just the NAD, it was a particularly perfect situation.

I’m a die hard tube amp guy but I enjoy my trips to Solid State Land now and again.
Usually, this has been through borrowing friend’s SS amps, like my buddy’s Bryston 4B3, but he sold that and doesn’t have a spare around anymore.

Especially since getting my benchmark LA4 solid-state preamp, I wanted to pair it with a solid state amp. However even in the secondhand market decent solid state amplifiers were still pretty pricey, and in my current financial situation, almost all of them are out of reach.

So finding the NAD at $400, sold locally from somebody nearby who was willing to drop it off at my house personally, thus snow for an exchange rates and no shipping charges, was about as perfect an opportunity as I can get.

However at the time I had some vintage Monitor Audio speakers for sale and I talked with somebody interested in them who was going to get back to me. I first wanted to see if I made that sale and could put the money towards the NAD. But that buyer fell through.

And then I decided what the hell I can’t give up the bargain on the NAD I’ll buy them anyway. But at that point they had been spoken for.

And then, of course, right after that, somebody showed up and bought the MA speakers.

Such is life in the audio market…
First world problems.

In that situation I usually buy something I don't want on the rebound.

I know the impulse.

I’ve set up a notification on hi-fi shark to alert me to new listings for the NAD 2700.

Not that it’s totally logical of course, but I like that the performance has been well verified the NAD amps of that era, they are old enough their prices will remain cheap, they don’t have the terrible heatsink fins that I detest on solid state amplifiers, and being a modest size, and not too heavy they’d be easy to put in out out of my system and fit on my fairly small rack.

In the past I’ve decided not to buy something else and held out for what I wanted.

For instance I hesitated on some used Thiel 2.7 speakers - the most beautiful pair I’ve ever seen from the photos, in the rare tiger striped ebony - and lost out. That ate at me and instead of grabbing something else I kept an eye out for a couple years until another pair in the same finish turned up, at an even better price, and I grabbed them. So glad I did because in the many years since I’ve never seen another pair come up for sale.

 

[Angsty]

Audiophiles commiserating!

The thing that’s nagging at me is that it wasn’t just the NAD, it was a particularly perfect situation.

I’m a die hard tube amp guy but I enjoy my trips to Solid State Land now and again.
Usually, this has been through borrowing friend’s SS amps, like my buddy’s Bryston 4B3, but he sold that and doesn’t have a spare around anymore.

Especially since getting my benchmark LA4 solid-state preamp, I wanted to pair it with a solid state amp. However even in the secondhand market decent solid state amplifiers were still pretty pricey, and in my current financial situation, almost all of them are out of reach.

So finding the NAD at $400, sold locally from somebody nearby who was willing to drop it off at my house personally, thus snow for an exchange rates and no shipping charges, was about as perfect an opportunity as I can get.

However at the time I had some vintage Monitor Audio speakers for sale and I talked with somebody interested in them who was going to get back to me. I first wanted to see if I made that sale and could put the money towards the NAD. But that buyer fell through.

And then I decided what the hell I can’t give up the bargain on the NAD I’ll buy them anyway. But at that point they had been spoken for.

And then, of course, right after that, somebody showed up and bought the MA speakers.

Such is life in the audio market…
First world problems.





I know the impulse.

I’ve set up a notification on hi-fi shark to alert me to new listings for the NAD 2700.

Not that it’s totally logical of course, but I like that the performance has been well verified the NAD amps of that era, they are old enough their prices will remain cheap, they don’t have the terrible heatsink fins that I detest on solid state amplifiers, and being a modest size, and not too heavy they’d be easy to put in out out of my system and fit on my fairly small rack.

In the past I’ve decided not to buy something else and held out for what I wanted.

For instance I hesitated on some used Thiel 2.7 speakers - the most beautiful pair I’ve ever seen from the photos, in the rare tiger striped ebony - and lost out. That ate at me and instead of grabbing something else I kept an eye out for a couple years until another pair in the same finish turned up, at an even better price, and I grabbed them. So glad I did because in the many years since I’ve never seen another pair come up for sale.

The Thiel story hits me in the feels - I got my pair of CS6s in a similar fashion after missing out on a pair of CS2 2s. They’ve been with me nearly 20 years now.

The CS2.7 is one hell of a speaker and pretty rare to see in the wild in any finish.

 

[Angsty]

I’ve set up a notification on hi-fi shark to alert me to new listings for the NAD 2700.

Don’t sleep on the C272, either. The C272 can be a lot more accessible. I’m still chuckling about “Eddie Hall in a business suit”!

 

[MattHooper]

The CS2.7 is one hell of a speaker and pretty rare to see in the wild in any finish.

Yup. Here’s one of mine:

I also have a spare set of all the drivers as back up.

The Thiel story hits me in the feels - I got my pair of CS6s in a similar fashion after missing out on a pair of CS2 2s. They’ve been with me nearly 20 years now.

The CS6…sigh… one of my all-time favourite speakers.

I had them for a while in my room in the early 2000s and I found them wonderfully paired with my CJ amps. I absolutely love the bass qualities of those speakers.

One last tale of regret:

A long time ago, I Reviewed the Waveform Mach Solo speakers.

Over the years, I would think back about those and realize how much I would love a pair. But only a few of them were produced before Waveform closed. And they were such an incredible speaker that anybody who managed to get one hung onto it. They just never showed up in the second hand market.

Then after 19 years a pair showed up on the second hand market. They were the last pair made, owned by John Otvos himself and even had upgraded drivers.

They were selling at an absurdly low price.
And not only that the seller happened to live only about 20 minutes away from me!

It was like all the stars aligned. Except one thing. I was broke.

I’d experienced a very unusual combination of a work drought and taxes owed. So even though they were cheap, I still couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. And I watched them get snapped up. Literally two months previously I could’ve bought them with ease and then literally a month or two later I could’ve bought them with ease.
But this ad happened to land smack dab at the moment I couldn’t afford them.

And then after that, annoying me for years… only two years ago I stumbled across a for sale ad on ASR of all places for the Mach Solos! I didn’t even realize that ASR had a section for selling gear before that.
So I missed them again.

Anyway, back to the NAD…