NAD C320BEE Woes...again

[Gamefreak501]

Hi everyone,

As some of you may know, my NAD C320BEE has been trouble ever since I got it, a few years back. But of course...that box shifter company didn't notice anything wrong with it, I gave it to them twice to look at. Needless to say, I never shopped with them again, and I never will.

My main question is, can dust ever cause the impairment of a hi-fi systems functionality?

I ask this, because every single morning, my hi-fi takes a while to kick in. It will crackle, pop and otherwise not work properly, I could have the volume knob to 1 'o clock, and I still can barely hear it.

Then I take off the cover (I have resorted to storing the screws away) and blow some dust off and it starts working as if there is nothing was wrong with it. The thing is though, it is not particularly dusty inside of it!

I haven't had it looked at by my local Electrician, but I am wondering whether it might be worth it - just for £5.

I am going to be getting a CD Transport and DAC at in a month or so, so perhaps it's an idea I upgrade my dodgy amplifier at the same time.

I cannot actually find anything visually wrong with the capacitors, the boards, or any of the loads of other things on the two main circuit boards. I have photos of the inside of the amplifier and can't find anything visually wrong with them either.

All help greatly appreciated!

 

[DRZ]

It is almost certainly a problem with the preamp stage inside your amplifier - a friend of mine has an almost identical problem with his C370!

We have tested it to death and we have got to a point where it has to be a dry solder joint/broken PCB track or something reproducing that effect.

If you are handy with an iron and have the time and equipment you could go hunting for the dry joint - the thing is they are notoriously difficult to find but really easy to cure once you do!

If you dont, you could always just sell it for spares/repair and upgrade but changing CD & Amp at the same time is going to be a bit difficult if you are trying to get a well matched system.

 

[Gamefreak501]

It is almost certainly a problem with the preamp stage inside your amplifier - a friend of mine has an almost identical problem with his C370!

We have tested it to death and we have got to a point where it has to be a dry solder joint/broken PCB track or something reproducing that effect.

If you are handy with an iron and have the time and equipment you could go hunting for the dry joint - the thing is they are notoriously difficult to find but really easy to cure once you do!

If you dont, you could always just sell it for spares/repair and upgrade but changing CD & Amp at the same time is going to be a bit difficult if you are trying to get a well matched system.

Cheers DRZ!

Seems NAD have been manufacturing batches of defective amplifiers in their entire range by the sounds of it!

I haven't had a play with an iron in donkeys years though!

I guess my next step should be to either get it looked at by the electrician or to take the bottom of it off and look at the circuit board tracks to see if one of them is broken, scratched or something of that nature.

I know there are amplifiers out there that are bassier than my NAD C320BEE (as I had a listen to a few) but at the same time..I'll be spending £300 or more on a new amplifier, DAC and Transport when I could be spending half that on just the Transport and DAC!

I'll definitely have a look at the fellow now though, it looks fairly easy to take apart, just some white plastic plugs (similar to the ones you get on a Computer PSU) and the rest is screws.

Cheers again