Three Big New Products From NAD Including Turntable
surface has announced three new products including a streaming DAC (digital audio converter), an amplifier/DAC, and a belt-drive turntable, at this stage local distributor Convoy have not said when the products will be launched in Australia.
Steve Burton Operations Manager from Convoy is still defending his stuff up earlier this week when he sent out a Bluesound press release embargoed to 8.00pm at 8.00pm last Monday. The release which Lenbrook Industries Limited have said was a global embargo was released by Burton to selected media in Australia ahead of the official embargo.
Lenbrook Industries are also the owners of the NAB brand of audio gear.
Among the new offering from Lenbrook, is the C 588 beltdrive turntable, due out in November, it comes pre-fitted with an Ortofon 2M Red moving-magnet phono cartridge and features electronic speed control, an AC motor with an isolated power supply, and a custom 9-inch carbonfibre tonearm designed to reduce tracking angle errors. To ensure speed accuracy, NAD converts incoming AC power to clean DC voltage before electronically generating “the precise AC frequency to regulate the synchronous motor.” All rotating parts are made from aluminium alloy “machined to very tight tolerances to eliminate…vibration in the drive system.”
Vertical tracking angle and azimuth adjustments are provided, and the turntable base is made of MDF with damping feet to minimize vibration. The C 588 is also equipped with a feltlined glass platter and a thick non-resonant dust cover.
Another new NAD product is the C 658 streaming DAC, due out in December, this system combines a preamplifier, DAC, and BluOS-enabled streamer in a modular component featuring classic NAD styling; the modular construction includes two slots to simplify future upgrades.
The new system was actually developed by Bluesound and the app-based BluOS platform supports wireless 24-bit/192-kHz multiroom streaming and provides access to upwards of 20 streaming services and indexing of more than a quarter million tracks from local network sources.
The streamer also supports MQA decoding (on all digital inputs) and two-way Bluetooth/aptX HD for “better-than-CD” quality streaming to and from Bluetooth-enabled devices. The C 658 is also equipped with a “lite” version of the Dirac Live speaker setup/room-correction system and a host of other features, including a moving-magnet phono stage, balanced preamp output, stereo subwoofer outputs, and a dedicated highcurrent headphone amp with a quarter-inch front-panel jack.
The third versatile D 3045 amp/DAC, due out later this month, has a built-in 2 x 60-watt amplifier and combines a 24/192 asynchronous USB input, MQA and DSD decoding, a dedicated headphone amplifier, and a moving-magnet phono stage in a compact chassis that can be oriented vertically or horizontally. It also supports two-way Bluetooth/ aptX HD and can accommodate up to eight sources via analogue and digital (coaxial and optical) inputs.
Other highlights include a full-range preamp output and subwoofer output for added flexibility plus an Audio Return Channel-enabled HDMI input. The D
3045 includes an infrared (IR) remote control and is described as a cool running, highly efficient design with a standby power consumption of less than 0.5 watts.