Nad 3130 or 3150

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tube-a-lou

Addicted Member
I seem to be on a NAD tear of late, I receiving this week two more amps from the house of
NAD a 3130 and 3150. Both are in great shape and suppose to work and sound great. The
3150 it's speaker connector are broken and I have a replacement on the way, the 3130 looks
like it's been babied very clean. Which you guy's think is a keeper? Oh the 3020 I received
last week work has stopped on that one it blew my right channel speaker, so I'll be selling it
for parts!
 
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Love my 3140. Think the 3150 has protection relay. Still check the caps and the soldering anyway. Nad watts are quite good. Plenty of headroom. If you haven't check out leesonic's threads on rebuilding Nad gear. Some great ideas. Especially the "blue" chassis.
 
I tried to get the 3150 up, recapped twice, rectifiers, roll opamp,,, even picked up a second unit with same result.
The 3150 sounded just ok but no real soundstage. I'd suggest repairing the 3020 and addind a speaker protection
kit (maybe USD20??). I also like the 3140 but still just ok.
 
mbz said:
I tried to get the 3150 up, recapped twice, rectifiers, roll opamp,,, even picked up a second unit with same result.
The 3150 sounded just ok but no real soundstage. I'd suggest repairing the 3020 and addind a speaker protection
kit (maybe USD20??). I also like the 3140 but still just ok.
Click to expand...

Wow that's to bad, I alway's thought they sounded good, and received great reviews. Might depend on what your
using them with, sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't work sometimes.
 
tube-a-lou said:
Nope, Right now I'm selling the 3020 it for parts, it blew my right speaker so it's enough of that.
Click to expand...
Any vintage amp without suitable speaker protection is a ticking time bomb, all it take is one (output) transistor to fail short to dump
35-80Vdc rails voltage on the speakers. Fuses don't do it for me, a basic kit can be had from about USD10- from china, probably need
a small transformer (9-12V, 1VA?) maybe another USD10-. Cap coupled types are exempt from this scenario.
 
Supernaut80 said:
.I don't suppose the 3130 has speaker protection? Bought 1 last week for £40
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3130 does not have a relay based protection circuit. It has a breaker in line for over current. Also has a FET based mute
circuit(in pre-amp) for masking power-ON transients. The 3130 should be a nice little amp but I'd add the protection circuit.
It will probably need some caps replaced
 
mbz said:
3130 does not have a relay based protection circuit. It has a breaker in line for over current. Also has a FET based mute
circuit(in pre-amp) for masking power-ON transients. The 3130 should be a nice little amp but I'd add the protection circuit.
It will probably need some caps replaced
Click to expand...
Sound advice. Well I'm hoping it's a had new caps as it looks like it's had a service (ripped off label leaving the date 1999) a while back. I guess it all depends on how much its been used and abused since

Is this link below what you mean..?

https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Short-Circuit-Overcurrent-Protection/

..just realised it sounds like it has this but not the relay protection circuit
 
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mbz said:
3130 does not have a relay based protection circuit. It has a breaker in line for over current. Also has a FET based mute
circuit(in pre-amp) for masking power-ON transients. The 3130 should be a nice little amp but I'd add the protection circuit.
It will probably need some caps replaced
Click to expand...
Does the breaker prevent the thump and pop when turning on and off? Cos I don't hear this like I do with the 3020a
 
Supernaut80 said:
Does the breaker prevent the thump and pop when turning on and off? Cos I don't hear this like I do with the 3020a
Click to expand...
FETs Q303, Q304 along with a simple RC timer disable audio for a few seconds after power ON, so they prevent the thump from reaching the speakers. Nothing similiar in the 3020 series so a kit should(must) be fitted otherwise risk blowing speakers.
 
Actually, although the original 3020 doesn't have the JFET muting circuit, I'm fairly sure the 3020A does.
 
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