NAD C298 Stereo Amplifier Review

[Deleted member 48726]

I find it humorous that people complain about the look of the C 298's case. It's as if they're oblivious to NAD's primary design aesthetic over the past 50 years. Minimalist design is a major plus in my books.
View attachment 309238
As for price, the C 298 was priced at USD $1,999 when it launched in September of 2020. In the past three years, the retail price has gone up 20%, with global supply issues as the likely culprit. I work hard to avoid paying regular price for anything. I bought mine as an open-box unit, and I see pre-owned units pop up occasionally on the used market.

Yeah. I don't get it either. NAD has always been extremely consistent with their design.

 

[fcracer]

So many superior Purifi implementations at about half the price. How this unit gets recommended is beyond me.

For me, I’d pay the NAD premium for safety. I have two dogs at home and if something happens to my amp while I’m not home, I’d never forgive myself for buying something cheaper that may not have proper safety testing and certification.

I had an air conditioner box fail while I wasn’t home and it dumped water into a Creek Audio amplifier. Thankfully, it gracefully failed and didn’t burn my house and dogs to the ground.

 

[PuX]

I find it humorous that people complain about the look of the C 298's case. It's as if they're oblivious to NAD's primary design aesthetic over the past 50 years. Minimalist design is a major plus in my books.

for me it's the speaker connectors (binding posts) that look out of place.
for example an old NAD C355 had black and red ones. they did not have any premium look or anything, but they did the job.
maybe it's the change to blue colour that is strange. or maybe the ones on C298 just look flimsy.

 

[steadilyfred]

for me it's the speaker connectors (binding posts) that look out of place.
for example an old NAD C355 had black and red ones. they did not have any premium look or anything, but they did the job.
maybe it's the change to blue colour that is strange. or maybe the ones on C298 just look flimsy.

Give the following article a read. It explains the reason for the blue terminals better than I can.

https://rel.net/blog/2017-12-27/how-to/connect-rel-class-d-gear/

 

[Svensson]

Although pricier than my Audiophonics HPA 400ET, this NAD cousin is still objectively great and so gets my "Great" vote.
We collectively consider the objective rating per $$$ (or other unit currency) or spec range, or both. Crinacles IEM chart gives a star rating for 'subjective value'. Yes it's subjective, but quite a good easy comparison tool for newbies, non-techy, and those who we could categorise under tl:dr. Probably would require a team effort!

 

[MaxBuck]

I'm not trying to sell this amplifier to anyone, but I'm glad I have one.

 

[Galliardist]

Decent heatsinks.

The NAD also has different buffers and a circuit modification to try and emulate the soft clipping feature of its class AB amps, if I remember correctly. So it's not a straight price comparison with most of the other amps mentioned here. I also know that if I buy a NAD amp from my local dealer I have legal rights in case of failure, and it will be certified to local electrical safety standards, all of which does count for something.

I'd forego five points of SINAD for that. Whether I'd pay close to double the price of the March Audio equivalent - I'm not sure. Even with the heatsinks. Then again they are in a different state and a long way away.

 

[TonyJZX]

I find it humorous that people complain about the look of the C 298's case. It's as if they're oblivious to NAD's primary design aesthetic over the past 50 years. Minimalist design is a major plus in my books.
View attachment 309238
As for price, the C 298 was priced at USD $1,999 when it launched in September of 2020. In the past three years, the retail price has gone up 20%, with global supply issues as the likely culprit. I work hard to avoid paying regular price for anything. I bought mine as an open-box unit, and I see pre-owned units pop up occasionally on the used market.

i understand this... i owned a few NAD products... largely unreliable lol...

BUT if your asking is $2,399 then i'd rather it not ape the 3020 no?

maybe ape the Masters series a bit more?

I'm absolutely fine with this look on the 268 given its $900 usd!

Do I want a Lexus GS/LS to look like a Corolla? same thing

 

[ameerm]

Bad price/performance ratio, and mid-fi aesthetics. If you're willing to go the Hypex/Bruno route, you can get more power in a better/cleaner implementation for literally half the price.

For a second I thought you were describing Hegel.

The modern NAD classic series has many parallels in terms of build quality, country of origin, and aesthetics to Hegel. But Hegels gets a pass for because old white men market them like they do REL subs.

 

[Svensson]

I have a NAD3020i of 1989 or 1990 vintage. It's advertised 40W was better than an 80W amp at driving my (even then) ancient Celestion Ditton 44 speakers It's had op amps replaced and dry joints fixed in about 1996, and has been otherwise flwless. I can really see why NAD built its reputation back in the day. I am in the minority (of one) from all my older mates with a move to move to Class D.

 

[PuX]

Give the following article a read. It explains the reason for the blue terminals better than I can.

https://rel.net/blog/2017-12-27/how-to/connect-rel-class-d-gear/

thanks, now it's clear that there is a reason for the change.

I doubt many others will follow, I think in many cases +/- aren't marked as clearly, relying on the user to actually connect + to + and - to -

 

[musicforcities]

wouldn't spend NAD money on it.

Yeah that’s the thing though: NAD money used to be not all that much. NAD made stuff that sounded great but was relatively affordable, via clever design or sometimes by less than great build or component quality.

Today, many companies offer excellent class d amps for far less and NAD has repositioned itself as high end and high priced and it’s masters series as very high end. Probably the only way that size company can make it in today’s market…or going the full lifestyle route like Naim has. But I fail to see the point of this amp.

I guess it is single ended/rca friendly while much of the smaller outfits are much more balanced centric.

If only schiit made a purifi based speaker amp..

Which brings me back to Naim. Man they blew it in terms of market repositioning. The band made smaller than normal components with external power supplies, different but nice design languages, and was devoted to balanced line level for the longest time (using the superior to rca but compact DIN connectors). Okay, their stuff never measured well had their audiophool biases against class d, dsp etc. but they could be making great products instead of becoming a lifestyle brand.

 

[musicforcities]

review)

Looks like a case and build quality of a $500 amp…not one that costs thousands. How are the pcb boards?

Nad often has less than great quality in those aspects.

Schiit manages to make better looking or at least brand distinctive cases on good PCB boards populated with decent components to for very little and do it in the USA.

 

[Snoopy]

Looks like a case and build quality of a $500 amp…not one that costs thousands. How are the pcb boards?

Nad often has less than great quality in those aspects.

Schiit manages to make better looking or at least brand distinctive cases on good PCB boards populated with decent components to for very little and do it in the USA.

I wouldn't exactly use schiit as a quality example compared to NAD. Same as "made In USA". Plenty of reports of schiit device's failing out there. Not to mention the outdated way to advertise their products very much like Hegel and Rel.

Plenty of manufacturers that sell purify and hypex Amps in the US/UK/EU to choose from

 

[Doodski]

Plenty of reports of schiit device's failing out there.

I've read of a few Schiit duds but not as many as you purport there to be. I've been hanging around here since ~Dec 2019 and apparently Schiit had some issues back a few years ago although the company has turned it around and offers popular items with good specs and test results now.

 

[eduardw]

I have 2 nad c298 and 2 years ago I paid 1700 each. I really like them but I do not think I would by them new voor 2300 euro. Then I would switch to audiophonic.
I only do not like the auto power of it is to quick. For me 2 hours before going to standby would be better. The auto power on is nice but a bit slow.

 

[musicforcities]

I wouldn't exactly use schiit as a quality example compared to NAD. Same as "made In USA". Plenty of reports of schiit device's failing out there. Not to mention the outdated way to advertise their products very much like Hegel and Rel.

Plenty of manufacturers that sell purify and hypex Amps in the US/UK/EU to choose from

I’m just

I wouldn't exactly use schiit as a quality example compared to NAD. Same as "made In USA". Plenty of reports of schiit device's failing out there. Not to mention the outdated way to advertise their products very much like Hegel and Rel.

Plenty of manufacturers that sell purify and hypex Amps in the US/UK/EU to choose from

I’m just saying that the nad is so generic in its design both electronically and is its packaging compared to what one can do for reasonable money it seems lazy and not a great value.

And I have had issues with every NAD I have owned. Cheap caps failing, undersized resistors getting far too hot and causing failure in other components, poor thermal management/layout in general; traces so thin it’s hard to repair failures…. I like the way they sound but unless this mainline amp has the same quality of components as the masters series, I would rather stick with stock purifi or ncore modules. Yes I know this class does not produce as much heat as old a/b. But a hot resistor next to a cheap el cap can still be a problem. As can an heat sink next to a cap or a non heat sinked transistor. And that’s my experience of how nads fail.

 

[SiamXIII]

Will there be any benefit in replacing Topping LA90 with this amp, to drive Kef R3s in 3x5m room?

 

[ahofer]

Will there be any benefit in replacing Topping LA90 with this amp, to drive Kef R3s in 3x5m room?

see my answer in the M23 thread. More power could make a difference with an 86db speaker like the KEF. +3db requires a doubling of power, and the efficiency measure is taken at 1 meter, I believe.

Sensitivity is on the money with respect to company spec if you look at mid frequencies. Deep bass though is lower at around 80 dB so amplification requirements will be significant.

KEF R3 Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the KEF R3 stand-mount (bookshelf) speaker. It is on kind loan from a member who sent a pair to me at great cost (they come two in a box). The R3 costs US $1,999 for a pair. The R3 is an example of superb industrial design by KEF: It oozes...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[martin900]

I'm uncomfortable with why you would make such a comment here without any supporting evidence.
Do you see something in the build quality that you lead you to that conclusion? It's easy to throw stones,
harder to pick them up.

Personally I find the amp overpriced for what it is, you can do as well for half the money from Buckeye.

Yes and I get tired of having to explain it every single time. NAD is built with the cheapest possible electrolytics, very often placed strategically close to heatsinks to shorten their lifespan even further so that the device breaks down. These devices are built to fail, guaranteed. Same goes for resistors for example, mostly underrated which results in high operating temperatures.
I've had about 15 NAD amps from the last 30 years here, same trash all the time. Just to tell you a few: C352BEE wrong transformer because they were lazy and took a transformer from a bigger model having to drop the voltage quite drastically over resistors, therefore you get extremely hot parts that fail. C370 has class-A modules enclosed in cans running hot and which contain tiny electrolytics (again C-tier chinese caps like Lelon, G-Luxon and such), every one fails, I serviced them. C375BEE same story, undersized parts, drivers run extremely hot, electrolytics fail, atrocious soldering quality.

The Masters series is no better, runs hot and fails quickly, which is a major shame because they do sound good, but simply die prematurely.
Audiolab and Cambridge from recent years seem to suffer similar fate (same OEM?).

The 90's models (MONITOR serie) have decent caps (a mix of A/B tier like Elna + TEAPO) but suffer from corrosive glue while they already KNEW darn well that glue will be eating components over time as it did with Sansui.

See the first 2 failure points on the C298: small electrolytic close to the white part in the top right corner. If it's a resistor, they know this part will run hot, heatsinking a resistor is not really common. Another one is the way the bridge rectifier is touching the cap next to it, this could be a production problem, though.
Also notice C-tier caps everywhere but on the output modules.