I just got a new C272 and after about a week the Toroidal Transformer has started to hum. It does that sporadically. It could be hot or cold, plugged into a different outlet, standing alone by its self etc... and still does that. It can be heard from 6 feet away. Is it a problem so some things thats normal and is to be expected...Some times it'll run all day and not hum some times as soon as I turn it on it starts to hum. I contacted the dealer and he said 6 out of 10 units do that. Any advice?
If you can hear it from six feet away, tell NAD where to stick six out of ten of their amplifiers. I can only assume the demo unit the dealer uses doesn't have this problem. Either tell them you want that unit in replacement (with a discount for a demo piece) or you want your money back. If what you describe is accurate, that is not a good product no matter what its other virtues might be. You paid for something you didn't get and something that should be simple to produce. Other companies manage to build amplifiers correctly.
I'd be a bit peeved at the dealer for not bringing this up before cash changed hands. Take your money and buy a real amplifier. I don't believe there has been an audio compnay that has stayed in business this long and built as many pieces of crap as NAD.
While your at it, change dealers. Something isn't right with this guy, he should had told you he was having problems with his C272 stock. My dealer claims he has sold 100's of those amps with only a couple problems, and those were the problems with the caps. 6 out of 10 seems ridiculous. Even for NAD.
Jan, obviously you do not like NAD products but to call them crap is beyond your usual temperment! Having a bad day? The 272 is a very good amp for the money and I will defend it.
I have owned 2 272's as some of you know and still have one that supplies bass to my speakers and have NO HUM at all. That dealer is full of it saying that 6/10 amps do this! I talked to my dealer and he said that is a load of crap! However, you may have one that is defective and that happens! My friends 14000$ YBA Pre-Amp went defective after 2 weeks and had to be sent back to the factory so this proves no matter what....things do break!
Sure, I never denied things break and every company has a service department for that very reason. I've actually sold a lot of equipment using that very argument. But NAD's track record is one of the worst I've seen in all my time involved in audio. Since they've never really had a dedicated factory for manufacture of their products, they don't seem to be all that interested in superior quality control. Their approach seems to be low bid and fix what needs to be fixed in the field when the customer complains enough. That's how a lot of mass market lines are doing business also but NAD isn't supposed to be mass market. That's my opinion and anyone can disagreee but I've never come across a company quite like NAD. Do I dislike NAD? Yeah, mostly because of their crappy service.
However, the answer from the dealer would not be acceptable to me as a client. We don't know much about this dealer though. This could be a dealer selling "B" stock for cheap prices. At that point, you get what you pay for and paying for return shipping is part of the deal.
"This could be a dealer selling "B" stock for cheap prices"
I think this is one of NAD's main issues, is how much B-Stock/Refurbished product they have on the shelves in so many Hi Fi Shops. 80 percent of Hi Shops in Canada sell NAD products, and about 40 percent of them in the USA. That is a huge amount of product, and a lot of that is Refurbished stock or B-Stock. NAD finally addressed the grounding issues in the A/V receivers, I think they should address how much b-stock their dealers are selling. I have purchased 5 pieces of NAD equipment in the last few years. 3 were New, 2 were "refurbished". The 3 that were new, still work perfectly with no problems. The 2 that were "refurbished" I have returned for brand new ones. I will never, ever buy a refurbished NAD piece ever again.
I do like NAD products, but I don't totally disagree with Jan Vigne, I think NAD has issues still they need to address. Fortunately for NAD fans, it seems they are finally beginning to, it just took them too damn long.
My only opinion of CA as a company is they are very small and trying to make some headway by doing right what NAD has neglected. I've not heard any CA products.
I finally got to hear some Cambridge stuff, it was good. I liked it. I like both NAD and Cambridge equally I think. I felt Cambridge's strong point was in their higher end cd players. The 840 was very nice. Totally different sound than NAD, better, more detailed highs, but I think NAD does better job on the midrange. It really comes down to personal taste I think, IMO. And of course, I have only heard CA once, in one setup so I can fully judge it yet. CA really are growing fast, that could be a good thing and a bad thing. We will see how things pan out for them in a few years. Hopefully they keep doing what they are doing at the present time.
I heard a CA integrated awhile back (can't remember which model) at the shop with a pair of Energy bookshelves. I was pretty impressed with the depth and clarity.
As for the NAD's. I wish I had known what I know now before I purchased them, and I probably wouldn't have. Of course I wouldn't have known what I know now if I hadn't purchased them. If that makes any sense. And no Nuck, I haven't been drinking (yet).
I contacted NAD and the guy there said its normal for 6 out of 10 NAD's to hum from the toroidal transformers.. So there was no luck there, the dealer I bought the floor model from with full warranty sent it in for repairs, he said they will have a look at it. They insist its normal, the dealer would not return it for a new one in the box, or exchange for another floor model I thought was weird. I was willing to pay the difference. Somethings up and this is my first buy of HIFI equipment. I'll be honest guys I don't know about NAD they service sucks too, it took a while for them to respond from the Help section of their website.....You know since I'm a FNG to the audio would these audio companies should do away with dealers just sell over the internet for lower prices, I hate this middle man bullshit, and searching for a dealer near you crap.
I also told the NAD guy about the dealer and he said there was nothing he could do since it was a floor model.... I think I've really been given the shaft here and I'm really apprehensive about walking in to another dealer for a frickin CD player.... You guys know of any cure for a transformer hum or buzz whatever they call it...The C272 has a good sound though but NAD was do a lot better if they started selling their stuff at Best Buy and Fry's...They may as well...
Let the service departmeat look at it. There are ways to solve a noisey transformer. If it doesn't come back fixed, then you have more leverage with the dealer.
Believe me, you don't want independent dealers to disappear and you don't want Best Buy selling products like NAD.
NAD told you that 6 out of 10 was normal? Un-real......Was the NAD distributor close by? If it was, I would had driven the damn thing down there, and threw it through their front window. I can't say I have ever heard anything like that before.
Good luck with getting rid of the hum, it must be extremely annoying!
I just wanted to input that my experience with NAD has been extremely positive, but I admit most of the credit should go to my dealer:
What happened was my year old C372 integrated made static come out of one speaker whenever I adjusted the volume so finally I decided to have something done about it. Worried that I'd have to spend quite a bit to ship the amp to NAD, I visited my dealer and asked if there's anything they can do to help me out. The manager said sure no problem, and immediately sent the unit in for an RMA (..I was expecting it to be sent off somewhere for repairs). Anyways, 48 hours later I was back at the dealer with a brand new amp in my hands, sent directly from NAD. Do be aware that when I went into the back room to get my amp, the manager pointed out that he had 4 other NAD's that were RMA'd THAT WEEK. Quite scary..
I also agree with an earlier post regarding the inefficiency of the Help section online as on many accounts I'd post a question, wait a week and still get no response, follow up with a "Hello???" and then BAM, get an answer within the hour. Why couldn't they just answer the first question in a timely fashion??
PS. Neither of my C372's hummed for more than a few seconds after turnon.
Happy endings are good, MP, glad to hear your dealer went to bat for you and took care of it; weren't these the same guys 3 years ago that denied/swore no problems with NAD gear?
NAD was bought with petty cash and are still operating on a shoestring - that's their convoluted history. With the HT craze in full throttle and the rest an IPOD world, I think there's going to be a shake out in the audio landscape due to a lack of margins, profits and the dominance by well-heeled companies like D&M and Yamaha.
How do you compete with those guys?
What's going on at Harman, a huge company, and KKR right now is an indicator, I think, of how stressed the audio/video busines is. KKR does not get involved unless the break-up value of a mismanaged company or their brand equity is worth by piece greater than the whole.
I had a bit of intermittent noise that came and went with my NAD370 - the idea of it annoyed me more than the actuality, but I know where you're coming from.
Hum, oh boy. Hold your horses boys and girls. There's a story here.
Toroidal transformers are really wonderful things but they have one weakness. They hum to a greater or lesser extent. It's actually not caused by a clean mains supply. A clean mains supply will give no hum whatsoever, but a dirty mains supply causes harmonics in the transformer which can cause it to vibrate and so create hum.
This is not a fault per se. It is a fact of life with toroidal transformers, and the bigger the transformer the more likely its reaction to mains borne noise. In order to avoid as much of the hum as possible, toroids are usually dipped in wax or resin to damp them and then locked in place in the unit with a large bolt and plate, but the fact is that at some stage some odd harmonic riding on the mains supply is going to make a large toroid hum.
So what does this mean to a Naim dealer? Lower end Naim kit rarely hums if ever. Higher end Naim kit occasionally hums like a b4st4rd. With a typical installation, you have a big toroid for the preamp, another for the CD player and another for the power amp and you know what? When one starts, they all go off in unison. My colleagues refer to it as singing.
The true cause of the problem is of course the mains, but try telling an electricity company that their mains quality is low and that your 500VA transformers are humming. They'd just laugh...
All transformers can hum whether they are toroidal, C core, E core, etc. This is one reason why transformers are often potted. And sometime it's just a lousy transformer that hums.
True, but toroids seem particularly susceptible to mains noise, possibly because of their shape. Generally, when working off a clean mains supply they do not hum enough to be audible, whereas C-C and E cores tend to have a continuous hum.
And it's also true that some seem to hum worse than others even though they've come off the same production line. I have known of some manufacturers replacing the transformer because it was too noisy.
However that is a very rare occurence. My point was that if the transformer is silent most of the time and hums only occasionally, this is not a fault of the transformer, but of mains noise.
But try telling that to your local electricity supplier!
