NAD Electronics

NAD Electronics
Private company
Industry Electronics
Founded 1972
Founder Dr. Martin L. Borish
Headquarters Pickering, Ontario, Canada
Products Hi-fi equipment
Parent Lenbrook Group
Website http://www.nadelectronics.com/
The iconic NAD 3020 integrated amplifier

NAD Electronics is a brand name of an electronics firm whose products include home hi-fi amplifiers and related components. NAD was an abbreviation for New Acoustic Dimension.

The company was founded in London, England, in 1972 by Dr. Martin L. Borish, an electrical engineer with a PhD in physics.[1][2][3]

Its most famous product is the late-1970s NAD 3020, an integrated amplifier designed by Bjørn Erik Edvardsen, which was highly regarded by various magazines in Britain.[4][5]

NAD's philosophy is to include only genuinely useful features for aesthetically understated designs when compared to other competitors' product. NAD was one of the first audio manufacturers to outsource the manufacturing of its products to electronics factories in east Asia.

NAD was acquired by the Danish firm AudioNord in 1991 and subsequently sold in 1999 to the Lenbrook Group of Pickering, Ontario, Canada.[2][6]

Power-supply design

NAD focuses on the concept of "effective power" and its amplifiers make claims to deliver generous headroom, meaning that they may be able to deliver dynamic power bursts far in excess of their rated RMS power. The key to this feature requires use of a flexible power supply which stores significant reserve current for quick release at moments of high musical load. The various incarnations of this design have been associated with different names over the years including Power Envelope and recently PowerDrive. Additional benefits of this approach include the fact that amplifiers using this technology can handle complex, real-life, lower-impedance loudspeaker loads as compared with the simple 8-ohm resistor typically used to calculate advertised power ratings and the fact that the circuitry in this approach requires less cooling, while maintaining ability to handle complex impedance loads as low as 2 ohms.

NAD Technology in Bluesound

Two Bluesound products, Pulse and Power Node, feature NAD direct digital technology.[7]

See also

References

  1. Tellig, Sam, "Stereophile Reviews C375BEE C565BEE", Stereophile, 3 January 2010
  2. 1 2 Lyons, Daniel, "Digital Dislocation", Forbes, 10 May 2004
  3. Cf. NAD company website
  4. "Hi-Fi That Rocked: NAD 3020 Integrated Amplifier", Hi-Fi Choice, May 2006
  5. Fremer, Michael, "Stereophile M3 Review", Sterophile, January 2007. "Like the 3020, the M3 is the product of NAD's director of advanced development, Bjørn Erik Edvardsen, and Asian manufacturing expertise, this time in the People's Republic of China."
  6. "Lenbrook Group adds NAD to Roster", Stereophile, 25 April 1999
  7. "Streaming With Bluesound, Via NAD And PSB".
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