NAD Monitor Series: Purist Sound!

NAD Cassette Decks MONITOR SERIES

BY: Lutz Emigholz "Lucky"

What's all about the fuzz and sound of the NAD Monitor Cassette Decks ? First, you have to know how this series were created. The NAD owner and Chief engineer Bjørn Erik Edvardsen, got much acclaimed from many professional musicians for his famous 3020 amplifier. They asked him to make some hi fi systems in this direction: a "proffesional" look and performance during the 80's.

The construction and plan for the Monitor Series took about 4 years of critical development and searching for the parts, circuits, technology and last but not least the "Makers". Factoriess who are willing and able to built it. The NAD 6300 tapedeck was manufactured in one of the big japanese OEM's, possibly Hitachi. The "builtin" sound color are the same character in all Monitor Series gear : neutral, extreme deep bass, very detailed with a very good phase stability for a good stage and depth !

The first thing you will notice with a Monitor deck in your high quality equipment is that you can't identify the tape out of the source : no smoothed bass, missing details , harsh highs, W+F or hiss ! Nothing ! It sounds simply like a hardware source. Totally neutral, with good produced music like a studio R2R !

The best part comes when you are recording with it. The combination of DynEq and HX-Pro is able to make recordings beyond everybodys imagination! It surpass the frontier of tapedeck recording. Absolutely clear without any compression effects. The result is a "second original" !t Difficult to differentiate against the source in a proffesional way. You can record without Dolby but the benefits are not so great as with Dolby switched on. But the real sensational NAD deck are the 2-header 6100, If the heads were not weared, which often happens when they were heavily used, it can match the same quality as the 6300 3-header in recording AND playback ! A charasteristic almost Nakamichi claimed for his 2-head decks. The 6100 has beaten the all so "called" reference decks like the Revox B215S or the Dragon ! Yes, a "simple" 2-header does all better than these two beasts !

The real trick is inside these 2 decks. Both are full packed with best parts, best circuits, best of the best in all and that's what makes the real difference. Sankyo drives, Hitachi heads, Alps switches and pots, JRC (Accuphase-Nakamichi) opamps combined with a genious circuit layout. The alignment could be a nightmare : ~ 20 trimmer inside has to be adjusted ! Outside you will found only 2 : the playtrim and the bias pot. The bias pot was combined with level.. So against all "normal" working Bias pots, you can get more highs by simply turning it cw ! If you like studio gear these are the units to buy !