NAD C 316BEE V2 Integrated Amplifier Review

[Bruce Morgen]

Picture of the internals, courtesy of this site: https://audiolab.com/product/nad-316bee-v2-stereo-integrated-amplifier/

Look at all the components -- including a hefty toroid transformer -- it takes for this perfectly competent Class AB integrated amp to deliver less power and pretty much the same (1dB better) SINAD compared to a sub-$50, comparatively old Class D chip amp + a power brick. It's nicely packaged with nice input options -- and palpably nostalgic, which can be very appealing to some of us -- but AFAICT it's pretty much an obsolescent product. YMMV, of course -- that's just how it seems from here...

 

[Bruce Morgen]

It's even got that nostalgic single-sided PCB design

Yup, that's a whole lot of PCB real estate for some comparatively simple circuitry -- but the case has plenty of room so, WTF, go single-sided!

 

[diddley]

I owned the C355BEE and it runnend hot.and always when playing loud a plastic melting smell. But it was a good amp and i loved it.
Sold it for a small price and got myself the Cambridge CXA 81, witch is a good amp on lower volume. well I am getting older so it doesn't have to be as loud as in my younger years.

 

[woppinger]

a sub-$50, comparatively old Class D chip amp + a power brick.

You are comparing apples and oranges - which one of those has 5 inputs including a phono stage, tone/balance controls, headphone output, and a remote control?

 

[Bruce Morgen]

You are comparing apples and oranges - which one of those has 5 inputs including a phono stage, tone/balance controls, headphone output, and a remote control?

Point taken, I was just referring to (and surprised by) those power and SINAD numbers. I suppose some folks actually need all those features in one unit and are willing to pay the price in size, weight, heat, and power consumption -- but then again, it certainly makes more price/performance sense than something like a PS Audio Sprout. To each his own!

 

[conman1040]

Hi, I use a NAD C 316BEE V1, which I believe is identical to the V2 minus the phono stage, to power a pair of ELAC DBR-62s. I am wondering if the NAD amp has enough power to properly drive the speakers. I heard more power can create better dynamics. Is the NAD sufficient?

 

[Narrator]

Hi, I use a NAD C 316BEE V1, which I believe is identical to the V2 minus the phono stage, to power a pair of ELAC DBR-62s. I am wondering if the NAD amp has enough power to properly drive the speakers. I heard more power can create better dynamics. Is the NAD sufficient?

For the price I think it is. However, I’m interested in trying the ELACs with a Purifi-based amp, as I often see reviews highlighting ELACs as strong performers above their price category.

 

[Doodski]

This is another reminder as why no one should buy NAD products.

View attachment 385963 View attachment 385964

All planned obsolescence with placing C-tier capacitors next to hot heatsinks (knowing NAD there will be at least a few real hotspots on the PCB) and they are either stupid or just don't care and still drop a lot of voltage over resistors that will become very hot during use.
Seriously guys, this stuff is built to fail after warranty expires.

I agree. I used to provide NAD warranty service and they do have hot spots and caps getting baked. The PCBs are prone to solder dissociation due to the solder being overheated for many hours. It appeared that the amps where run pretty hard so that might be the cause.

 

[Elgrosso]

Thanks @amirm

This has been on a market for a while and I always wondered how it performs.

This, in particular, is incredible (while a bit high, it's so cohesive).
View attachment 385867

Yes I’m surprised how good it is there, low enough for me and very constant.
I knew this amp was ok, bought one on sale last year and used it few months as a power amp.
Output was clean on my midbass.
A bit too noisy on high efficiency drivers to use all the power, but after lowering the volume and adjusting gains it was fine.

I then replaced it with a little fosi v3 stereo, mostly for the size, and i confirm they both sound good.
And both a little too noisy on HE.

There was a review here too: https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/wzmacniacze-stereo/3079-nad-c316bee-v2

 

[thewas]

You are comparing apples and oranges - which one of those has 5 inputs including a phono stage, tone/balance controls, headphone output, and a remote control?

Also which will still probably work in 20+ years and have good support and reparability? Getting older I am less driven by numbers like inaudibly high SINADs but other qualities like sustainability which count now more for me.

 

[Mnyb]

I like the captive power cord

It effectively stops you from buying aftermarket snake oil cables. More amps should have this feature.

 

[ssashton]

Discrete circuits like this, as compared to IC based designs, usually run on higher voltage rails and offer more signal gain if needed. It shouldn't be needed with sensible system gain structure, but the reports of the Wiim amp not getting loud enough (in particular from the HDMI input) show that sometimes extra gain is helpful. (Low gain is part of how they get the noise down).

I don't know how much max gain this has??

 

[TonyJZX]

they've been doing this for longer than many of you guys have been alive so NAD *should* be good at this

i also think these things kind of dont have a place in a modern household???

like why would i want a full size 19" wide amp that only does 40w? is it a desktop amp?

does it have enough power to fill a room?

i'd either want less size but similar power or more power but i'm ok with the size

maybe that's just me but yeah... full size amp with limited power?

 

[ssashton]

Regarding power output I think that is another interesting point. Many affordable class-d amps run on an smps brick which may provide 24V-36V. It might deliver 200watts, but only in to a low impedance because it doesn't have the voltage to drive higher loads. I don't know what this amp runs on, but typically discrete designs could be anything from 50Vto 80V allowing it to actually deliver rated power in to a greater range of loads. Again, making generalisations here, but my point is there are areas the affordable class-D amps fall down where 'traditional' amps might not.

 

[xaviescacs]

This is another reminder as why no one should buy NAD products.

View attachment 385963 View attachment 385964

All planned obsolescence with placing C-tier capacitors next to hot heatsinks (knowing NAD there will be at least a few real hotspots on the PCB) and they are either stupid or just don't care and still drop a lot of voltage over resistors that will become very hot during use.
Seriously guys, this stuff is built to fail after warranty expires.

Just for the record, there is at least one of them still working after 15 years of daily use with low to medium gain.

Edit, just for fun:

Without specific domain knowledge available, time to failure is modeled with an exponential distribution. If the warranty is 3 years and this is the expected time to last, the probability that one unit lasts 15 years is 0.00674, which is much less than the usual 0.05 p-value. Hence, or my device it's a very rare outlier, or the expected value of the time to fail is not 3 years.

 

[Petevid]

A very reassuring review. I owned this amp for about 10 years before selling it in favour of the Wiim amp. I always suspected it was a well designed amp as I couldn't fault it, it saw off a Rega IO I bought at one point. I couldn't measure it so it's nice to know my suspicions weren't unfounded. Wish I hadn't sold it now , I think it's a modern day classic in its price range.

 

[Sokel]

Sweet performance,established name for peace of mind and years of enjoyment.
And as cheap as it gets even if I hate talking about prices when measurements are present.

The likes of it entered a lot of people to the hobby,Nad along with cheap Yamahas must be champions to it.

As others said,it's THD+N vs Freq is a joy to look,some sensitive speakers in a small room and it's good to go.

Thanks Amir!

 

[TurtlePaul]

Regarding power output I think that is another interesting point. Many affordable class-d amps run on an smps brick which may provide 24V-36V…

There are plenty of of class D amps using 36-48 V power bricks. However, they are also bridge-tied load (BTL) architectures which allow the full voltage to be driven across the terminals while these traditional AB amps are single-ended, so only the positive or negative half of the voltage rails are in use at any given time.

The result is that with the 36V PSU, a Fosi v3 can do 34 watts vs. 43 watts for the NAD, about a 1-2 dB difference. With the 48 V power brick, the Fosi destroys this at 8 ohm with more than 2x the power.

 

[Cogito]

Captive cord kept it from being a "Great" for me.

 

[usersky]

Thanks for the review! Used v1 for some time, quite a pleasure if a bit short on power for my setup but it reacts gracefully to power spikes because of these bulbs so you can push it with some confidence, probably you wont fry your tweeters when overdrive. Upgraded to 375BEE that's quite a differrent beast but in the same spirit. Also a total pleasure to use it but that one really runs hot, would like to see it measured. Moved from 375BEE exactly because how hot it runs even idling but I won't part with it, I just love how well build it is even if by my judgement is ugly. Had/have other NAD devices, not a single issue. What I don't like here is a bit of unbalanced performance between the channels, I'd prefer both channel aligned to the lower performance one than being asymetric.