Repair or Replace: my NAD310 amp

edzillion

Since richer sounds seem to have left Ireland (?any idea why?) they put me on to the Phillips shop on dame street.

A very nice man there told me he estimated fixing the amp would be around €100. The amp originally cost me 100 Irish Punts probably 8-10 years ago. It has served me well, my only gripe being that the bass/treble knobs are perhaps a little too sublte.

I gather this is thought of as a decent amp; so what do you think? Is it like a PC - has the tech improved enough that I could get a much better one for about the same price, or stick to the tried and tested?

/all opinions appreciated

ed

Idleater

edzillion wrote: »

It has served me well, my only gripe being that the bass/treble knobs are perhaps a little too sublte.

Do you find you have to adjust these much? Personally I leave them alone, but that doesn't solve your issue, or request.

In short, yes technology has moved on and you could either replace it or get an external equaliser or pre-amp to feed into one of its inputs. Repair on these devices is "specialist" in that if you can find someone willing to tinker with it then great, if not then I presume most "Hifi" shops would spend more on fixing it than it is worth - purely on a labour cost never mind parts.

edzillion

Do you find you have to adjust these much?

I tend to just put the bass up slightly; the amp has a pretty warm sound already.

thanks for the input. is there an obvious good choice for a seperates amp (~100 watt) for around €100 - €150?

ed

Idleater

but surely you adjust the bass once and leave it there? What I mean is, what is actually broken or what do you want repaired?

There are plenty of budget amps new on RicherSounds.ie, but for a bit more quality in your price bracket I would definitely go take a look at ebay.

edzillion

I had a chat to the engineer and he thinks there are two problems:

1. power supply - causing the overall humming sound
2. one of the channels is screwed - causing the crackling in the right channel

the bass/treble thing was just an observation about the amp in general (i.e. something I could improve by upgrading, not something that needs to be fixed...)

had a look at a cambridge audio one on richersounds, but I wasn't blown away by the price/performace tradeoff

cheers
ed

bob11

You could get a replacement NAD amp from Richer here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055836936

36. NAD C325BEE Amplifier - Ex-Repair - Was £269.95 - I'll Clear it at just £179.95