C320 BEE - Excellent sounding budget amp (NAD C320)

Member Name: laalaaa

Product:	NAD C320
Date:	08/08/06 (1564 review reads)
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Advantages: Price, natural sound, excellent clarity, includes remote control

Disadvantages: Plastic front panel/knobs, only one speaker output

I've been using the NAD C320 BEE, which I purchased for £160, for over a month plugged into a pair of Kef Q1 speakers as a replacement to a Rotel RA-931 amplifier.

The amp (2x50W) is powerful enough to drive any pair of budget/mid-range bookshelf speakers and works well with the Kef's producing a sound more punchy than the Rotel. It seems to work well with a variety of genres, from hip hop to jazz, and overall produces a clear and natural sound.

Apart from having excellent sound quality, the amp is also well spec'ed, featuring 7 line inputs (including a pre-out useful for subwoofers), soft clipping to prevent speaker damage and a remote control (which quite impressively can move the volume control knob). The remote itself is quite bulky and designed to control more than one NAD component, but is a useful feature to have.

The case, whilst quite stylish in titanium (colour!) and well designed, is entirely plastic on the front panel which could make it quite susceptible to damage. This is a trade-off for the high quality components within that include all gold-plated plugs and a toroidial transformer.

Overall the C320 BEE is an excellent sounding amp and whilst it's not great in terms of external build quality, it more than compensates with the quality of its sound at such a low price. Well worth purchasing.

Summary: Excellent-sounding budget amp lacking slightly with external build quality due to low price

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