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Think I'm being ripped off

Gosh - way out in the "out back" - no gear available and a week long trip to get anywhere? That puts the discussion into a different light. Go ahead and pay the guy - he is doing this to make a buck - and while he is "high" what choices do you have? Though my own experience with NAD is that nothing made in England is worth a tinker's damn. Think English cars - not only substandard engineering - but inferior assembly and bad steel. Britannia no longer rules the waves - or much of anything for that matter. A cute nation with interesting people, bad food and way inferior manufactured products.
 
Not a week-long trip, but 7 hours return to get to Sydney. Maybe there are good repairers in Canberra (5 hours return) but at least in Sydney there is a choice of repairers. I have the same problem with cars.

Actually the older Brit vehicles were not so bad. It was in the mid 90's that things went bad especially for Land Rover. The BMW acquisition only worked in favor of the Germans who picked up all the LR technology before they sold the marque to Ford. I had one 98 model Rnge Rover that although it was lovely to drive, it was a heap of s#it mechanically. Now I have a 91 and a 93 "classic" and both are excellent

Re the NAD, as someone said earlier, you either love them or hate them and I'm yet to find out which. It was my understanding that the design was good and they were eventually made in Taiwan where I have found the standards to be very high - unlike mainland China: My interest is not in sheer volume, but in a clean uncolored soundscape right through the bass to treble - for classical music

"The company was founded in London, England, in 1972 by Dr. Martin L. Borish, an electrical engineer with a PhD in physics. 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​

NAD's philosophy is to include only genuinely useful features for aesthetically understated designs when compared to other competitors' products. 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".
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I don't have that much money anywhere! Despite the cost, I do wonder if is 10-12 times better than my entire system.

I'm currently playing the ancient DGG recording of the Bach double concerto in the office on the Dual using my old Pioneer tuner/amp that has both speakers hooked up to only one channel due to the noise on the other, but is still sounds bloody wonderful through the MIcro Acoustics speakers I'm collecting the NAD today so will soon know what the final result will be
 
And this is part of the reason why many of us do this ourselves - its cheaper.

I dont think the rates you were quoted were TOO extortionate, its just that if you start learning how to do things yourself, it makes life easier, and you learn in the process.

I do have several amps that have beaten me, including most recently a Sansui AU-X1. You cant win them all.

If Im doing work for clients tho, I charge NZ $65 an hour. But I like to keep my volume of work low as I have a busy life as it is.
 
$NZ $65 is very reasonable

Actually, I do many things myself - the only real option when living in a remote area. That was the case with changing belts on a Kenwood KX1030 and all sorts of adjustments and belt replacements on various turntables. However, having taken the cover off the NAD and consulted the repair manual (available online) I figured I was more likely to ruin it than fix it.

To conclude this thread, I now have it back and it sounds excellent. It WAS a significant amount of money in total - over $625 including the original purchase but I can live with that
 
The price seems reasonable to me. Not that many people left doing electronics repairs any more around Brisbane (where I am) so it sounds in the ball park to me.

I drive to the Gold Coast whenever my tube gear needs work.
 
Glad to hear your amp is running properly again. I repair/service and sell many vintage amps/receivers on the bay and one thing l can say is that most sellers do NO service work to units before sale, l don't think most people understand this. Did you buy the unit from a reputable seller that had gone through it?. Most times it takes hours to service these old units alone then much more time obviously if a full rebuild is undertaken.
 
Oldsansui441 said:
Glad to hear your amp is running properly again. I repair/service and sell many vintage amps/receivers on the bay and one thing l can say is that most sellers do NO service work to units before sale, l don't think most people understand this. Did you buy the unit from a reputable seller that had gone through it?. Most times it takes hours to service these old units alone then much more time obviously if a full rebuild is undertaken.
Click to expand...

It came from a private seller in Tasmania via Crapbay and I should have known better, but was swayed by the specs on this model. You get largely what you pay for and this was cheap at $100 odd including freight. No mater -the drama is over now - as you say, many hours went into the rebuild and the end result is excellent. I guess one could pay nearly that much for some more modern piece of equipment that will most likely be made from inferior components and very average workmanship.
 
alanl said:
$NZ $65 is very reasonable

Actually, I do many things myself - the only real option when living in a remote area. That was the case with changing belts on a Kenwood KX1030 and all sorts of adjustments and belt replacements on various turntables. However, having taken the cover off the NAD and consulted the repair manual (available online) I figured I was more likely to ruin it than fix it.

To conclude this thread, I now have it back and it sounds excellent. It WAS a significant amount of money in total - over $625 including the original purchase but I can live with that
Click to expand...


Good, glad to hear it sounds good and you are happy.

You also said "Actually, I do many things myself - the only real option when living in a remote area. That was the case with changing belts on a Kenwood KX1030 and all sorts of adjustments and belt replacements on various turntables. However, having taken the cover off the NAD and consulted the repair manual (available online) I figured I was more likely to ruin it than fix it."

Nothing wrong with admitting you will probably screw something up if you attempt to fix it.
Been there, done that, anymore if I have doubts I'll let someone who knows what they are doing do it.
 
alanl said:
I guess one could pay nearly that much for some more modern piece of equipment that will most likely be made from inferior components and very average workmanship.
Click to expand...

Yes l agree alanl, Put it this way, you will now have a unit that you like and is reliable into the future, if you get many years of service the repair cost divided over every year going forward will prob become negligible. Happy listening :thumbsup:.
 
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