Stereophile
July 2003
Reviewer: Art Dudley
?The C320BEE is a really nice little amp, and totally worthy of whatever laurel leaves the 3020 has shaken from its head...The NAD is musically and sonically accomplished, and is probably about as close to organic sound as you can get for this kind of money."
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Stereophile?s Art Dudley, long-respected for his ?tell-it-like-it-is? style of reviewing has given the C320BEE integrated amp his seal of approval, finding it very musical and worthy of keeping company in a system costing many times its modest price. Here are some excerpts:
?...But nonaudiophile friends and family members keep asking me to recommend good two-channel music systems. With that in mind, I?m on a quest to find the best cheap amp I can...?
?First there?s the NAD C320BEE, which, according to its manufacturer, carries the torch for their well-loved 3020 integrated amp of the late 1970s and early ?80s?this because both products bear the imprint of designer Bjorn Erik Edvandsen.?
?The NAD weighs in a little over 14 lbs., delivers 50Wpc, and has inputs for five line-level sources in addition to two tape loops. The US price of the NAD C320BEE is $399.?
?That?s right: $399. In light of that, the C320?s clean layout and excellent build quality come as nothing less than a shock. The transformer is a toroid, all the output devices and voltage regulators are mounted on generously sized heatsinks, and all the C320?s active parts are discrete. Solid-copper bus bars abound. Connectors are gold-plated and sturdy without being silly about it.?
?The NAD C320BEE sounded surprisingly good at the basics of playing music?listening to this amp was consistently more an exercise in fulfillment than frustration. Driving the Quad ESL-989s or the ?se? version of Spendor?s little S3/5, the C320?s sound was free of noise and artificial texture. It could sound colorful, given the right source?stringed instruments on Ricky Skaggs? well-rounded Bluegrass Rules and Ancient Tones albums sounded warm and real, as did the strings and woodwinds in some of my favorite small-scale classical recordings?and its low-frequency performance was at least darn good, being neither anemic nor slow.?
?Once up and running for a minimum of 20 minutes, the C320 reproduced stereo recordings with excellent depth. Try that first Leonard Cohen album Songs of Leonard Cohen for example, and listen to how pleasantly distant the brushed snare sounds in ?So Long, Marianne,? and how realistic the space is between Lenny and his demure backing singers.?
?The C320 also preserved the music?s sense of flow, regardless of style.?
?...the NAD did a great job playing every track on one of my favorite albums from last year, Built to Spill?s Ancient Melodies of the Future. It got across the buzz?n?chunk of the opening number, ?Strange? in an engaging and convincing way?lots of color, no fatigue?and managed to make the bass-and-drum combination sound impactful and fast at the same time. Ditto the same album?s ?Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss? which scooted right along through the C320.?
?I don?t feel the least bit silly putting a $399 integrated amp in the same system with a $3500 SACD player, $8000 speakers, and God only knows how many dollars worth of cables. The C320BEE is a really nice little amp and totally worthy of whatever laurel leaves the 3020 has shaken from its head. (I know because I used to own one?and I?ve owned the 1020 preamp that was derived from it, too.) The NAD is musically and sonically accomplished, and is probably about as close to organic sound as you can get for this kind of money.?
?[Comparing the C320 to the Rotel RA-02]...the NAD C320BEE?s music-making is more to my taste; I?d be willing to sacrifice any number of conveniences for its smoothness and surprisingly good level of involvement.?
