FM Tuners:
NAD and Parasound
Reviewed by Charles Hansen and Nancy and Duncan MacArthur
PHOTO 1: The NAD C 420 stereo tuner.
NAD C 420 stereo AM/FM tuner. |
| sent the budget end for |
| screen shows the band and fre- | ||
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NAD Electronics International, 633 |
| tuners. These two manufacturers’ |
| quency of the station being tuned, | ||
Granite Court, Pickering, Ontario, |
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| FM stereo, whether the station is a | |||
Canada L1W 3K1, (800) |
| $349; and the |
| memory preset, and whether Blend | ||
www.NADelectronics.com. $249 |
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| and FM Mute are engaged. It also | |||
U.S. Dimensions: 435mm W ⋅ |
| sensitivity and lower audio distor- |
| has a vertical | ||
70mm H ⋅ 285mm D. Net weight: |
| tion specifications. However, if |
| nal strength indicator. | ||
8.8 lbs (4kg). Warranty: two years |
| you don’t require fringe area re- |
| Pressing the display button cy- | ||
parts and labor. |
| ception, these two tuners repre- |
| cles the display to RDS program | ||
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| sent excellent values. |
| service. Another push cycles it to | ||
Parasound |
| NAD C 420 |
| RDS text. The display then returns | ||
Parasound Products, Inc., 950 |
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| to the default mode after a few | |||
Battery St., San Francisco, |
| Photo 1 shows the C 420 front |
| seconds. The infrared sensor is lo- | ||
CA 94111, (415) |
| panel. Just above the power switch |
| cated on the left side of the dis- | ||
www.parasound.com. $269 U.S. |
| on the left is a small green LED in- |
| play window. A rocker switch on | ||
Dimensions: 9.5” W ⋅ 1.75” H ⋅ |
| dicator, which turns amber in |
| the right side of the unit is for the | ||
7” D. Net weight: 4 lbs. |
| Standby mode. A row of six push |
| Preset/Tune functions. | ||
limited warranty. |
| buttons selects Blend, Memory, FM |
| The tuner chassis is black paint- | ||
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| Mute/Mono, AM/FM, Display |
| ed steel, and the cover is held on | ||
The NAD C 420 and Parasound TDQ- |
| modes, and Preset/Tune functions. |
| with five screws. The front bezel is | ||
150 AM/FM stereo tuners repre- |
| The white fluorescent display |
| plastic and the unit sits on four | ||
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| plastic feet with elastomer |
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| rings on the bottom. There is |
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| adequate finger space under |
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| the unit to easily lift it. |
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| The rear panel (not shown) |
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| has the attached |
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| polarized AC line cord, a +12V |
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| trigger jack, the |
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| input and output jacks, |
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| stereo audio jacks with gold- |
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| plated shells and tin center |
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| contacts, a | ||
PHOTO 2: Front view of Parasound |
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60 audioXpress 6/02 |
| www.audioXpress.com | ||||
antenna connector, and a threaded 75Ω
The C 420 provides up to 30 sta- tion presets, which you can use in any combination of AM and FM stations. FM Mute and FM Blend status information is stored with each FM preset. Empty presets are skipped over during tuning to pro- vide quicker access to the stored stations.
The preset information is stored in
FM Mute/Mode switches the C 420 to mono and disengages the muting circuitry so you can manu- ally tune weak stations. FM Blend provides a means to automatically reduce noise and hiss on weak sta- tions while still retaining some stereo separation. Once the signal level drops below a certain thresh- old, it will revert to mono. The tuning increments for FM are in