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…

 

[juliendogg]

Fun to watch the 2200 on the dyno:

 

[juliendogg]

Interestingly I have had one of these on my eBay watchlist for a bit. As I'm reading through this 19 page thread I get an offer to buy it for 199. Of course I jumped! Tax and shipping put it around 400.

 

[Angsty]

Another fluffy video, not so much for engineering insight as for the fans. Made me smile with nostalgia.

 

[juliendogg]

Interestingly I have had one of these on my eBay watchlist for a bit. As I'm reading through this 19 page thread I get an offer to buy it for 199. Of course I jumped! Tax and shipping put it around 400.

That was a typo, $299*

 

[juliendogg]

Looks to be 100% original. I don't see any bits that look to have been replaced, not anything that looks suspect. For now I gave it a quick clean with CRC QD and hooked up my least important speakers. It had a pretty bad crackle sound on both channels. I did some extra cleaning on the RCA inputs and that cleared right up. I've had it running my R3s for the last couple of hours and it sounds fantastic!

I will be recapping this thing soon anyways, and maybe try the few mods that quirkaudio describes. 40 year old caps and all that. If I had to guess this thing did not see a ton of use.

I wonder if amirm would be interested in testing this as-is, though, to compare with the quirk audio refurbed unit. I do hate to think about shipping it, lol.

 

[Angsty]

Looks to be 100% original. I don't see any bits that look to have been replaced, not anything that looks suspect. For now I gave it a quick clean with CRC QD and hooked up my least important speakers. It had a pretty bad crackle sound on both channels. I did some extra cleaning on the RCA inputs and that cleared right up. I've had it running my R3s for the last couple of hours and it sounds fantastic!

I will be recapping this thing soon anyways, and maybe try the few mods that quirkaudio describes. 40 year old caps and all that. If I had to guess this thing did not see a ton of use.

I wonder if amirm would be interested in testing this as-is, though, to compare with the quirk audio refurbed unit. I do hate to think about shipping it, lol.


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At $400, still a great buy!

 

[juliendogg]

At $400, still a great buy!

I've been listening all day at moderate volume and occasionally cranking it way up when a favorite tune rolls around. It hasn't even gotten very warm at all. The Marantz Cinema is way warmer and it's not pushing any speakers, lol. I am so very very pleased! Actually shocked that it sounds so very good with apparently all the original 40 y/o passives. It was a tad thin at first, but after a few minutes warming up it's very good, at least to my ears. I have no better way to measure it, lol. I had really been missing having an external amp since my B&K went out months ago.

 

[Angsty]

I had my NAD re-capped at Quirk and I have loved it. I can’t genuinely say that the recap changed the sound, but it provided me with the peace of mind that the amp could go on another 10-20 years without problems.

 

[juliendogg]

I had my NAD re-capped at Quirk and I have loved it. I can’t genuinely say that the recap changed the sound, but it provided me with the peace of mind that the amp could go on another 10-20 years without problems.

I've definitely looked through the quirk site. Looks like solid work! I did pick up some advice from the blogs there as far as doing a couple mods. Recapping on nicely laid out boards like what are in this amp is something I don't mind doing at all. It's fun work. I have the service manual and schematics on hand, just waiting on caps and relays. All of the caps were ordered from digikey, mostly nichicon with a few kemets. All are audio grade. Caps and relays cost me around $60.

I ran into a bit of the "punch through" audio yesterday. Very low volumes the left channel would cut in/out and then clear when turning up. I opened it back up and cleaned those relays, fixed that problem for now. New relays should fix it permanently, or at least for as long as I will need this amp, lol. Otherwise the amp sounds fantastic, so I do not really expect a sound difference. Not sure how much there is to things like replacing C215-218 with larger caps to open up "more bass". That's part of what quirk does with these. I figured I may as well give it a shot, though.

 

[DSJR]

I remember that into easier loads and smaller speakers, the 2200 could sound subjectively slightly 'muddled,' this when compared directly with their integrateds. Having said that, a client had just bought some huge PMC MB1s and bought two 2200s to bi-amp them (passive). The sound was excellent, the amps really being allowed to stretch themselves (the room was large enough I remember).

NAD did a deluxe range (Masters M22 stereo?) that I liked very much, but I semi-retired an dleft the retail scene around this time and knowledge is so old now with a huge blank since. No idea if any/many of you had experience of them. Styling of standard models aside, I have a lasting impression that their products remain by and large, rather better in most cases, than the styling would suggest (like the C320 for example).