Amp and Tuner suggestions? | Stereophile.com

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December 7, 2005 - 8:25am

#1

Anonymous (not verified)

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Amp and Tuner suggestions?

Bare with me guys, definitely a novice here but your wisdom would be appreciated.

Looking to upgrade my system of Pioneer, Technics, Sony, hodge podge stereo system.

A couple of years ago I purchased a couple of Paradigm bookshelf speakers.

I'm looking to replace my pioneer receiver with an NAD C350 amp and then purchasing a tuner.

I would like to be able to hook up a casette player/recorder, turntable, CD player, and my DVD player to the amplifier.

Am I on the right track here looking at an NAD C350? Any other amp suggestions? I'm looking at the used market for purchases.

Any tuner suggestions?

My cost parameters definitely fit within the $1,000 budget.

December 7, 2005 - 11:01pm

#2

Monty

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Joined: Sep 16 2005 - 6:55pm

Re: Amp and Tuner suggestions?

Yup, that is as good a place to start as any. You will need to pick up a phono stage to be able to partner a turntable with this integrated amp. They aren't expensive and a dandy NAD PP-2 phono stage at around 120 bucks will do the trick quite well.

You should be able to snag both on the used market for around $300 combined.

The integrated has plenty of power to drive most speakers and enough inputs to hook-up all the gear you are talking about.

If you are using generic rca interconnects and speaker cable, try to budget another $100 for a used Kimber PBJ or Kimber Timbre interconnect and some used Audioquest Type 4 speaker cable. Both work really well with entry level gear like the NAD, Rotel, Paradigm and psb stuff.

April 4, 2006 - 3:24pm

#3

commsysman

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Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

Re: Amp and Tuner suggestions?

What you want is the NAD320BEE; this unit is outstanding at $1000 and casts $400; it is far better than any other integrated amp under $2000 that I know of. See Editor's Choice in The Absolute Sound and recommended components in Stereophile. It will make the junk you have sound broken.