The Nad 3020 Appreciation Society

[nopiano]

I never owned one, but sold dozens, if not hundreds, and I only worked in hifi on Saturdays. Classic pairing was with various iterations of Dual CS-505 belt drive turntable, or the occasional Technics direct drive. AR18 speakers, or Tannoy Mercury were often bundled, though speaker choice was more varied than the deck/amp combo.

The cassette decks never did it for me, but the tuners were fine with a decent aerial. A popular upgrade was to pop the amp on a Mission Isoplat, as board with 4 Sorbothane feet. Made a surprising improvement in sound, due I think to the transformers being quite highly stressed and buzzing in time with the music when played loud - easily done in a shop environment. The Isoplat seemed to ‘ground’ that vibration.

I’d love to hear one again today!

 

[Steve983]

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And finally the 3020i was introduced in 1991. It was phased out sometime later in the 90's, I don't know when - if anyone knows or has some old copies of What Hi Fi from the 90's that might give us some clues please let me know.

Correction: The 3020i was actually introduced in 1990 and was nominated in the What Hi Fi Awards Best Amplifier for that year although the winner was the Pioneer A-400.

 

[Steve983]

I never owned one, but sold dozens, if not hundreds, and I only worked in hifi on Saturdays. Classic pairing was with various iterations of Dual CS-505 belt drive turntable, or the occasional Technics direct drive. AR18 speakers, or Tannoy Mercury were often bundled, though speaker choice was more varied than the deck/amp combo.

The cassette decks never did it for me, but the tuners were fine with a decent aerial. A popular upgrade was to pop the amp on a Mission Isoplat, as board with 4 Sorbothane feet. Made a surprising improvement in sound, due I think to the transformers being quite highly stressed and buzzing in time with the music when played loud - easily done in a shop environment. The Isoplat seemed to ‘ground’ that vibration.

I’d love to hear one again today!

There's a fully refurbed one on EBay right now.

Pardon our interruption...

 

[Steve983]

I've discovered two more amps that are very closely related to the 3020. The 3220PE (1988) and 3225PE (1990) were improved versions of the 3020e and 3020i respectively. They used the same circuit board but with a 'dual voltage' transformer and an improved power supply design. According to the What Hi Fi buying guides from 1990 & 91 they were also rated at 40w rather than the standard 20w of the 3020 and were approx £30 more expensive. As you can see they also looked exactly the same:

 

[Gray]

I've discovered two more amps that are very closely related to the 3020. The 3220PE (1988) and 3225PE (1990) were improved versions of the 3020e and 3020i respectively. They used the same circuit board but with a 'dual voltage' transformer and an improved power supply design. According to the What Hi Fi buying guides from 1990 & 91 they were also rated at 40w rather than the standard 20w of the 3020 and were approx £30 more expensive. As you can see they also looked exactly the same:

View attachment 9169

View attachment 9170

It's surprising how many variants they made.

 

[Steve983]

It's surprising how many variants they made.

It sure is, I'll post some of the other amps of the era next. I am not going down the rabbit hole of cassette decks and cd players though. Meanwhile here's a presumably very early 3020 with the rack mount handles that I just found on EBay - that would be a good one for the museum 😉