NAD 7140 VS Nakamichi TA 2A

Found a unit recently and decided to run it in my system for a few weeks and was quite surprised by it.
Decided to run the 7140 next for the hell of it thinking I might sell it. Still a great unit. I will leave it in place for a while.

I sold the Nakamchi. So I guess that answers that. Yes. The 7140 is a keeper.

I don't buy, unless on the fly. There is nothing I need that badly to spend the kind of money folks spend on this stuff.
I have upgraded, and found that I can still find stuff that impresses me, that would not be considered that good for what it is. Average at best. My attitude is although it may not be exactly what I want, I have enough knowledge to know what to walk away from, and what to run away with. I will find something else great, or really good, at a very low price, and sell something else.
I just had limited experience with NAD, and this unit surprised me. Maybe I will act out of character and seek out the 3080.
I would be happy with a Musical Fidelity A 308, and vintage Sota Sapphire Turntable.
I like my Tannoy System 800's, and my Sony ES CDP, so the above upgrades are what I would really want. But only on the fly. Smile.

Laviathon,

Like all audiophiles, I eventually upgraded. :-)

I had the 7140 for about 20 years and it worked just as well when I sold it as the day I bought it new. In fact, it was the last original piece out of my system, as I first bought a power amp and used the 7140 as tuner/preamp only, then bought a preamp and used it as tuner/phono preamp only, then bought a phono preamp and used it as tuner only.

My current stuff is better in all ways than the 7140, but cost 10x. It's been worth it, but I was happy with the 7140 for 20 years, so it was doing a lot of things right.

I saw and heard a 3080 in a friend's system in college and was my first experience with NAD. It was a beast and considerably more expensive than my 7140. My impression is that it was a pretty high end piece and probably way better than the 7140. Too many years apart for a detailed comparison.

David

I meant to ask what the owners of the 7140 did with theirs. They stated they used one for years, but did not mention what they did with the unit after they stopped using it. Did it die (Doubtful) was it sold, or is it in storage?
I am curious about the old NAD 3080 Integrated that was produced back in the late 70's? 90 WPC I believe.

Well the NAD is superb. It not only sounds better then the Nakamichi, it sounds better then the Rotel RX 1050 easily. I am using Tannoy System 800 Speakers.

Celtic66, the pre/amp, outputs/inputs do have interconnect jumpers in place of steel ones.
Still haven't hooked this up yet and given a good testing. I will early this coming week. The NAD has more features like MM/MC cartridge selector, and it has better speaker connections then the Nakamichi. The Nak has those lame clip connectors. You can replace them, but I am not interested in doing that.
I am still enjoying the Rotel RX 1050 find. So it's been hard to switch out the Rotel for a few days. I'll definitely get it done though.
With a solid power amp, two vintage receivers (Yamaha CR 2040 Anybody), the Rotel, and either the NAD, or NAK, something is going.

The old trick with older NAD pieces was to immediately replace the pre out/amp in steel jumpers with interconnects/jumpers which immediately delivered a very palpable improvement.

I also used an NAD 7140 for many years and it's terrific. No experience with the Nak and it might be better, but the 7140 will serve you well.

David

I had the NAD 7140 at one time for about 10 years and you are right. It is a very powerful, conservatively rated 40 wpc with a lot of dynamic slam.

The pre/power amp sections of the NAD can also be used independently of each other.

The dynamics in older NAD products are more than in their newer products. Its a keeper.

These are both pretty nice older receivers. Either one is a keeper, but if I had to choose, I would keep the Nak.