NAD 3120 brochure Designed For Real-World Performance, Moving Coil Input

3120 Integrated Amplifier

Date of manufacture : Jan 84 - Jan 87

Please note that this document contains the text from the original product brochure, and some technical statements may now be out of date

The NAD 3020 is the most highly praised low-power amplifier in high-fidelity history. Critics around the world have praised its accuracy, musicality, and seemingly effortless power. The 3020B the latest version of this classic, contains several improvements but no fundamental change in design.

The 3120 is identical to the 3020B in circuitry and performance, except that it has been simplified by deleting tone controls and LED power display.

The moderately priced 3020B and 3120 stereo amplifiers provide state-of-the-art performance at effective output power levels substantially greater than would be expected from their conservative rating of 25 watts per channel. This remarkable characteristic is made possible by a high-voltage, high-current output circuit that can deliver short-term bursts of double or triple the rated continuous power output into the typical impedances of real loudspeakers. NAD’s exclusive Soft Clipping” circuit permits listening levels even beyond these limits, by reducing harshness at high volume settings. With respect to freedom from noise at low levels and freedom from distortion at high levels, the 3020B and 3120 are the most truly “digital ready” amplifiers in their price and power class.

Designed For Real-World Performance

Specification tables and magazine test reports confirm that virtually all modern amplifiers measure well in the laboratory, with impressive figures for parameters such as the power out-put at 8 ohms and the signal-to-noise ratio with a short-circuited phono input. But outside of the laboratory, amplifiers are not all equal.

At home you don’t listen to signal generators, short-circuits, or 8-ohm test resistors; you listen to complex and dynamic musical waveforms, generated by phono cartridges and reproduced through loudspeakers whose true impedance is rarely 8 ohms. So, rather than incorporating costly refinements that yield little or no audible benefit, NAD’s “real world” approach to product design is focused on obtaining optimum performance under the conditions of everyday use.

Wide Range Phono Preamplifier. The 3020B/3120 is fully ready to accommodate the demands of the digital Compact Disc via its high-level AUX input, but as long as LP discs remain a primary music source for most listeners, the quality of the phono preamp circuit must not be compromised.

Instead of the usual low-cost IC, the phono preamplifier section of the 3020B/3120 is a newly designed discrete transistor circuit whose performance matches that of far more expensive preamp systems. It interfaces correctly with the high impedance of many magnetic pickup cartridges: its RIAA equalisation is precise: and it is virtually distortionless - not only with simple sine-wave test tones but also with dynamic musical waveforms 30 dB above average level. Its signal/noise ratio is close to the theoretical limit, not only with the short-circuit input that is often used for specifications, but also when a cartridge is plugged in. Its total dynamic range is approximately 106 dB.

Moving Coil Input

A rear-panel switch provides the increased gain required for low-output moving-coil cartridges, with extremely low noise, and without the cost and complications of external MC pre-preamps or step-up transformers.