NAD Reliability

I've got a NAD M3 and I love it... However the volume control is doing that thing where it doesn't really lower and occasionally goes up depending on how fast I turn it down via the front knob. It's kind of a stutter. I have seen other cheap stereo systems whose front volume knob eventually stops working. It seems to be the digitally controlled type knob, as opposed to a potentiometer or something like that. I hope that my issue doesn't get any worse. I can always use the remote I suppose, but who wants their nice heavy integrated amp to have issues like that?

Also the words above the volume knob have rubbed off.

Anecdotally, and from my own experiences, NAD's digital players are quite unreliable--I believe I've owned three seperate NAD players and each one had problems (laser, drawer mechanism). Their integrated amps, on the other hand, have been trouble-free, perhaps (as suggested above) because they have fewer moving parts. I've come to regard NAD components like most European cars--they're beautifully engineered and fine performers, but high maintenance and repair-prone.

I guess it's very much the luck of the draw. My experience with NAD so far has been neutral. I purchased a cheap NAD amp that did not have any problems during 5 years of ownership and it still sounds great at my Mom's.

I purchased a more expensive NAD unit last year and had problem with the power switch from day one, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I purchased from David at DMC Electronics in Calif. before and I would buy from him again. Just google his store name and you will find him.

Decent price, decent service, and a nice guy to deal with.

Per my local NAD dealer, customers return more receivers, DVD players, and CD players than the integrated amps.

Problem is labor cost is higher in China now and that's forced Lenbrook to reach out to less reputable suppliers which can only mean one thing: less quality electronics components.

My NAD guy has noticed that NAD quality has slipped a bit more than in the past, not much, but noticeable.

In addition, Lenbrook reps have pressured my NAD guy not to make it easy for customers to return their purchases which the dealer does not like at all.

On several occasions, he told me that he had to ship several crates of brand new DVD and CD players back to NAD for service.

Integrated amps are relatively more reliable since they don't have that many moving mechanism but he's said the power supplies and power switches have been the downfall of the NAD integrated amps.

I have heard that the Master line has issues too but not to the extent as the Classic line.

Own it, and have not had problems with my M3. But I hear there is numerous problems with the Chinese line. I am in the hunt to replace it with a Luxman.

I had an NAD receiver about 5 years ago and it gave me a ton of trouble with one of the amps. Even though it was under warranty, I had to fight with NAD to finally replace the receiver since they couldn't fix it after 3 trips to the service center and having it shipped to them. The new one has worked perfectly since and a friend is still using it. I was very dissappointed by the hassle and hoops that I had to jump through to get this thing straightened out that I vowed to never own another NAD product again. I will say that it did sound excellent.

Thanks for the updates and insight !

Actually from what I understand since Lenbrook industries bought out the other owners (NAD was had several owners at one point) in 2001 reliability and quality have gone up. Their new offerings in the 2 channel area (classic series) are very nice. I have only heard of one instance of someone having and issue with an M3, that is one nice integrated. NAD has it's own factories in China, so you have critical oversight. So NAD designs it's gear in Canada and then builds it in it's factories in China. Nad was one of the first companies to design in the west and assemble in the east. Things are much different from the days when you dropped off your designs to an OEM and they did their work. I would buy the M3 with confidence and compare it's build quality and sound to amps in it's price range.

I can tell you I just bought a new M3 and investigated it heavily, including several calls to NAD. I think the key is to where it is designed, and what level of QC the designing manufacturer is holding the plant to. Many North American major audio and smaller audio companies are building in China. Probably some that we do not readily know of. I during my search, discussed with another audio company, thier expensive integrated amp, and it being made in China. His feeling was that designed in North America, built in China with the right quality control, is as good as being built anywhere else.

My Mac preamp had a volume control failure within 5 years, so everything can fail.

But back to NAD and the M3. That is an NAD design in Canada with proprietary NAD items, not a China design rebadged like some of the audio products showing up. Of all the Dealers I talked to, there have been few problems overall on the M3 from what I gathered. There were some early problems with the M55/M5 I guess, but that was resolved. If I am not mistaken Mac had issues with it's 201 SACD player, and Rega had issues with some of it's CD players , so again nobody is immune.

I did a lot of research into products, failures, performance etc. What I found was of the 4 or 5 integrated amps I researched on, not one of them had a clean record. By that I mean, complaints of failure or flawed sonics of one type or another shows up on all of them, including the NAD M3. There is always some complaint or issue on all. So I found you have to take it all with a grain of salt and make your best decision.

All this said and done, I'll post on how well I like my M3 in the following days, and how it works and sounds.

I've had an issue with the M25 amp - sound's great, had to replace the power supply. The M15 pre/pro just quit working one day. Haven't fixed it.