On 18/09/2014 3:16 PM, Phil Allison wrote:
Trevor Wilson wrote:



**Back in the 1980s, NAD was manufactured by Fulet Electronic in
Taiwan.


** NAD stands for "New Acoustic Dimension" a British brand and the
early circuit designs were by a Scandanavian gent( see Wiki).

The early models were full of BC, BD and MJ prefix devices - which
was wacky for an obviously Asian made amp.

**Whacky, but not unheard of. Quite a few of Korean products were full
of such things as well. Back in the 1970s, there were a couple of
Marantz models (Model 140, 2275) which used Motorola (in-house numbered)
output devices. They appeared to be similar to the MJ15003/4. That was
kinda odd, since the rest of the range used all Japanese devices
throughout. I suspect the engineers in California specified the
Motorolas for some, specific reasons. Possibly they were more robust
than the Japanese devices at the time. They were much slower (around
2MHz fT vs. 10MHz fT for Jap output devices).




Whilst performance of the product was decent enough, the
mechanical

quality was crap.


** Saw one example of a NAD 3020 that had steel washers installed
BTEWEEN the 2NJ3055/MJ2955 output devices and the heatsink !!

Plastic front panel, cheapest possible hardware and electros -
yuck.

**Yep. Saw it all. One of my mates used to play 'catch the knob' with
his 3020. Press one of the input selectors and the other one would pop
out, ejecting the knob in the process. It was all down to NAD not
maintaining proper QC over Fulet. Funnily enough, I sold NAD back then.
I also sold Sansui. Dollar for Dollar, through most speakers, the Sansui
was a far better product (AUDX series, not the cheap ****) than the NAD
(except for the excellent NAD tuners, with their Shotz topology -
excellent for those living near the bridge). Nontheless, the NAD walked
out the door. You couldn't tell people to buy the Sansui instead. They
just accepted what the Pommy mags said and bought the NAD.



NAD parted ways with Fulet and went to Japan for most

of their manufacture. Fulet began manufacturing their own brand,
Proton,

sometime before the split. Astonishingly, some of their early
products

(like the 940 receiver) were identical to the equivalent NAD model
(7150

receiver). So much so, that the service manual for the NAD could be
used

with the Proton. Same part numbers, PCB designations, etc.


** LOL.

Never knew that before.

**Yep. I remember when I first discovered it. I was gob-smacked. I
couldn't beleive that NAD either didn't have some kind of copyright over
the design, or failed to try to enforce their rights.


--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au