NAD Electronics C420 User's Manual
Contents
1. If the tuners all sound the same we ll say so when we hear obvious differences we ll point them out Second if the sonic signatures are similar the choice may devolve upon price features and opera tional convenience Third a brief comparison between these tuners and other sources may be useful Our goal is to give you an idea of what to expect before making a purchase The NAD C 420 and the Parasound TDQ 150 arrived from the manufacturers by way of Chuck Hansen s lab The ADCOM GFT 555II was an older model borrowed from Ed Dell for use as a baseline We burned in each tuner with an antenna signal sufficient to exceed its muting threshold for at least 100 hours Tuners are significantly easier to burn in than many other components because they do not have moving parts or large sources of heat The sound of the NAD and Parasound changed significantly over the burn in period Presumably the ADCOM had burned in long ago Following burn in we listened to each tuner in turns using the same set of popular and classical stations As might be anticipated the popular stations provided a horribly compressed signal On the other hand they frequently played songs we knew well The rest of the 62 audioXpress 6 02 reproduction system was identical in each case and all three tuners were plugged into the same circuit of a Monster Cable HTS 2000 power conditioner Each tuner also receives the AM band although we concentrated on FM per2. C 420 is a rarity among components a good looking black box well proportioned with an el egant oval display window Its preset tune rocker echoes the shape of its display window The most Salient feature of the Parasound s appearance is Its tiny size roughly half as wide half as high half as deep as the other tuners If you have a 17 rack you could mount the Parasound side by side with its matching preamplifier The ADCOM GFT 555ll is a standard chunky black box its most noticeable fea ture is a long row of buttons on the front panel Popping open the Parasound reveals a single densely packed PC board The board dominates the in terior of the Parasound and fills the available space Although the Parasound is much smaller than the other tuners it weighs about the same The NAD s main PC board is well laid out and less densely packed It fills about half the enclosure As you might expect in an older component the ADCOM s main board nearly fills its box Although all three tuners are well laid out and cleanly constructed the NAD and ADCOM probably would be easier to service or modify due to the extra elbow room within the enclosure EASE OF USE Both the Parasound TDQ 150 and the ADCOM GFT 555I were easy to use The Parasound has five front panel buttons and includes a remote To set the pre sets you must use the remote You can tune the pre www audioXpress com sets sequentially using buttons on the
3. Mute mode to measure mono sensitivity The sta tion auto search threshold where it would stop at the signal genera tor s frequency during a station scan was 27dBf There was no overload at the maximum RF input of 100dBf The audio output disap peared when I moved the FM test signal 50kHz to either side of the tuned center frequency Stereo audio output was 0 9dB below Need help with your speaker designs the mono audio at 65dBf signal strength The seven bars of the display s tuning strength meter change at the RF signal levels are Bar 1 always on Bar 2 at 25dBf Bar 3 at 30dBf Bar 4 at 33dBf Bar 5 at 36dBf Bar 6 at 39dBf Bar 7 at 41dBf MEASUREMENTS PARASOUND FM SECTION Again I did not run any tests on the AM section except to verify its operation The TDQ 150 inverted polarity the tuner s audio output being out of phase with the com posite audio signal fed to the FM signal generator s varactor modu lator The output impedance at 1kHz was 600Q delivering 580mV into a load of 100k The TDQ 150 tuner frequency response Fig 1 was within 0 0 5dB from 20Hz to 15kHz Crosstalk performance at 1kHz measured 58dB BassBox Pro amp Xeover Pro can help Design speaker boxes for any space car truck van home hi fi home theater pro sound studio stage PA and musical instruments Import acoustic measurements For example the response of a car can be imported to simulate the in car r
4. extremes but this effect was small and may have been due to the source material The NAD presented a good soundstage extending from speaker to speaker but the images within this Stage were not particularly well defined The NAD s sound seemed slightly compressed even more com pressed than the source material This effect was es pecially noticeable when we listened to classical music stations which tend to transmit less com pressed signals The Parasound produced a precise detailed sound characterized it as having detail and clarity while Duncan saw it as having a slight high frequency em phasis In any event the high frequency response was clean extended and never fatiguing The Parasound s imaging was sharp and well de fined Its soundstage was similar to the NAD s howev er the detail and clarity of the Parasound extended to the spatial characteristics as well With well recorded material the images of individual instruments were well separated and sized appropriately The Parasound seemed capable of reproducing as much dynamic in formation as was transmitted In comparison the ADCOM presented a smooth natural sound No frequency region was missing or particularly emphasized The soundstage was very wide occasionally extending beyond the speakers The ADCOM s imaging was somewhat smeared each in strument appeared to originate from a space several feet across rather than a single location The dynamics p
5. front panel The remote is also handy for changing stations and ac cessing the presets in random order in addition it has preamplifier controls intended for use with a matching preamplifier also half rack width The Parasound uses the U S frequency interval of 0 2MHz and can be tuned rapidly across the FM band The 30 presets on this tuner are accessible in se quence by the up and down buttons on the front panel We preferred the random access ability provided by the remote The tuning buttons on the Parasound operate in two modes A short press on one of the tun ing buttons will change the frequency by 0 2MHz Ac cording to the manual a continuous press will tune to the next strong station however our sample would not stop at any station regardless of strength Like the En ergizer Bunny it kept going and going and going The ADCOM GFI 555II has only 16 presets 8 AM and 8 FM but has an individual front panel button permanently assigned to each It thus provides totally random access for setting and tuning the preset fre quencies The ADCOM didn t come with a remote and its manual makes no mention of remote capability It tunes in 0 1MHz intervals The ADCOM has three modes of tuning A short press on one of the tuning buttons will change the fre quency by 0 1MHz and a continuous press will tune continuously Activating the FM scan switch will stop the tuning at the next strong station These features are straightf
6. m La i a as E alt ad a a i Passive Crossover Filters and Scalable Driver Modeling e Ist 2nd 3rd and 4th order ladder filter topologies Parallel crossover topology 2 way crossovers offer Bessel Butterworth Chebychev Gaussian Legendre Linear Phase and Linkwitz Riley filters e 3 way crossovers offer All Pass Crossover APC and Constant Power Crossover CPC filters Xeover Pro s capabilities scale to fit the amount of driver data e A crossover filter or L pad can be designed with just the nominal impedance of each driver e With full Thiele Small parameters impedance equalization can be designed and the performance graphed e Graphs include Normalized Amplitude Response Impedance Phase amp Group Delay e Graphs can include the full speaker response including the box Estimate component resistance ESR amp DCR e Calculate the resistance of parallel or series components CAABRBRAOSBOMeaeSGAAAOCU MMH barrel cone unearen cube 64 audioXpress 6 02 cylinder domed truncated ellipsoid au opt square reg polygon cylinder cylinder prism prism slanted truncated front prism edge prism pyramid pyramid pecti i 4 sided 3 sided ina sphere pyramid www audioXpress com 2 chamber wedge BP cylinder 3 chamber BP prism 2 chamber BP prism 3 chamber BP cylinder
7. strength Design crossovers with 2OVEP Design 2 way and 3 way passive crossover net works high pass band pass or low pass filters impedance equalization L pads and series or par allel notch filters Its Thiele Small model provides We include the world s largest driver database with the parameters for many thousands of drivers For more information please visit our internet website at www ht audio com Tel 616 641 5924 Fax 616 641 5738 129 plus S amp H sales ht audio com Harris Technologies Inc 99 plus S amp H P O Box 622 closed vented bandpass and passive radiator boxes Suggest feature provides fast box design All box types account for leakage losses and internal absorption e Advanced vent calculation e Bandpass boxes can be single or double tuned with 2 or 3 chambers 22 box shapes shown below e Open up to 10 designs at one time e Analyze small signal performance with Normalized Amplitude Response Impedance Phase and Group Delay graphs Analyze large signal performance with Custom Ampli tude Response Max Acoustic Power Max Electric Input Power Cone Displacement and Vent Air Velocity graphs Includes a helpful Design Wizard for beginners Edwardsburg MI 49112 0622 U S A q e ia results without complex testing Eemer meee Ga mere j bee Be E ses eee SS ef on ai a Ema ELEF Terre LLL LRG Sate a fae 2 2
8. SIDE THE NAD C 420 Photo 3 shows the NAD C 420 with the cover removed The power transformer occupies the left rear PHOTO 3 Interior view of NAD C 420 OUTPUT dB rel FREQUENCY Hz AUDIO OUTPUT dB rel 20 40 RF SIGNAL dBf of the chassis and connects to the switch LED board in the left front The display control PC board sits behind the front panel Occupying most of the right side of the chas sis is the large single sided pheno lic tuner board A schematic was not furnished with the unit The display board connects to the tuner board through three rib bon cables and the power trans former secondary connects via 1K 10K 20K A 2091 1 STEREO AUDIO MONO AUDIO STEREO SEPARATION __ STEREO QUIETING 60 80 A 2091 2 FIGURE 2 FM quieting NAD C 420 MONO AUDIO AUDIO OUTPUT dB rel 20 40 STEREO AUDIO __STEREO SEPARATION STEREO QUIETING MONO QUIETING 60 80 RF SIGNAL dBf FIGURE 3 FM quieting Parasound TDQ 150 audioXpress June 2002 61 Mi CRITIQUE NAD C 420 PARASOUND TDQ 150 AND ADCOM GFT 55511 W By Nancy and Duncan MacArthur Some years ago we moved toward a minimalist audio system one source one volume control one amplifi er and one set of speakers In the process we elimi nated much equipment including our old Dynaco FM 5 tuner In the intervening years we forgot how much fun playing with a tuner could be After burning
9. SPECIFICATIONS AND MEASURED RESULTS FM SECTION SPECIFICATIONS Usable sensitivity mono Mono quieting 50dB Stereo muting Fixed Stereo quieting 50dB S N A wtd 65dBf mono S N A wtd 65d Bf stereo Frequency response gt 74dB THD 1kHz mono 0 08 THD 1kHz stereo 0 20 THD 100 10kHz mono Separation 1kHz 50dB Separation 100 10kHz 40dB Alt ch selectivity 400kKHz 80dB Capture ratio 45dBf lt 1 5dB AM suppression 60dB Auto search threshold Output impedance Output level eight individual wires The shielded MOSFET RF front end sits just be hind the two antenna connectors A Sanyo LA7218 and LA1837 chip set handles PLL frequency synthe sis and AM FM tuning and RDS de coding operations The EEPROM preset storage memory chip is under the wide nbbon cable The FM tuner appears to have a PARASOUND TDQ 150 11 0dBf 1uV 75Q 37 20Bf 20uV 759 30 15kHz 1dB MEASURED RESULTS 10dB 11dBf 1uV 759 40dBf 40dBf 27uV 759 74dB 68dB 20 15kHz 0 0 5dB 0 09 0 15 0 28 58dB 20dBf 6002 1kHz 580mV 1kHz three stage IF intermediate fre quency section A pair of emitter follower audio transistors feed the audio jacks INSIDE THE TDQ 150 Photo 4 shows the interior of the TDQ 150 tuner The power trans former sits on the left side of the chassis with the display control PC board behind the front panel The compact double sided epoxy tuner board occupies most of th
10. asound s matching preamp ampli fier or phono preamp The ADCOM is supremely easy to use but lacks some features in comparison with its remote controlled brethren If you purchase the NAD Strongly recommend buying the optional remote con trol use of the presets in particular is arcane when using the front panel controls Sonically each tuner offers a different picture De pending on the program material alternately pre ferred the sound of either the Parasound or the ADCOM The Parasound possesses good imaging and a very detailed sound It works well in a tube based sys tem such as ours which has a smooth high frequency response and no need of additional bass emphasis The ADCOM is fuller and arguably more natural but lacks some detail when compared to the Parasound Although the NAD didn t match well with our system it might be better matched to a solid state system that could use a bit more bloom in the lower midrange audioXpress June 2002 63 mance was 54dB at 1kHz THD N at 1kHz was 0 087 mono and 0 29 stereo During distortion testing I engaged the test set 80kHz low pass filter to limit the out of band noise THD from 100 10kHz mono did not exceed 0 22 The mono audio distortion residual waveform shows mainly the second harmonic overlaid with noise The C 420 tuner quieting charac Design speaker boxes with PFO teristics are shown in Fig 2 I had to switch to FM
11. car radio method tune the station press the preset button for 5 sec onds voila you re done You can assign up to 30 presets to any AM or FM stations The CMOS memory retains preset sta tions by means of a super capaci tor for up to 30 days without AC power RDS program service data or text is not displayed FM mono is automatically en gaged below 15V EF signal level The tuning increments for FM are the odd 200kHz U S spacings The AM tuning steps are 10kHz TABLE 1 NAD C 420 SPECIFICATIONS AND MEASURED RESULTS FM SECTION SPECIFICATIONS NAD C 420 MEASURED RESULTS Usable sensitivity mono 2 2uV IHF 220 Bf 3 4uV 75Q Usable sensitivity stereo 16uV IHF 36dBf 17uV 75Q Mono quieting 50dB 23 3dBf 4 0uV 25dBf 5uV 75Q 7502 Stereo muting blend 37dBf Stereo quieting 50dB 40 2dBf 28uV 38dBf 22uV 75Q 75Q2 S N A wtd 65dBf mono 71dB S N A wtd 65dBf stereo 69dB Frequency response 30 15kHz 1 5dB 20 15kHz 1 2 0 5dB THD 1kHz mono 0 20 0 087 THD 1kHz stereo 0 30 0 29 THD 100 10kHz mono 0 22 Separation 1kHz gt 45dB 54dB Capture ratio 45dBf 2 4dB Image rejection 400kHz gt 60dB Auto search threshold 27dBf Output impedance 42002 1kHz Output level 550mV 1kHz The ten page manual is entirely in English Ancillary equipment includes the remote control with batteries power cord FM dipole antenna 3000 to 75Q balun and AM loop antenna with self adhe sive bracket IN
12. consume lt PRODUCTS REVIEWED FIV tuners NAD and Parasound Reviewed by Charles Hansen and Nancy and Duncan MacArthur NAD C 420 stereo AM FM tuner NAD Electronics International 633 Granite Court Pickering Ontario Canada L1W 3K1 800 263 4641 www NADelectronics com 249 U S Dimensions 435mm W x 70mm H x 285mm D Net weight 8 8 lbs 4kg Warranty two years parts and labor Parasound TDQ 150 stereo tuner Parasound Products Inc 950 Battery St San Francisco CA 94111 415 397 7100 www parasound com 269 U S Dimensions 9 5 W x 1 75 H x 7 D Net weight 4 lbs Ten year limited warranty The NAD C 420 and Parasound TDQ 150 AM FM stereo tuners repre PHOTO 1 The NAD C 420 stereo tuner sent the budget end for high end tuners These two manufacturers higher priced tuners NAD C 440 349 and the full size Parasound TDQ 1600 400 offer better FM sensitivity and lower audio distor tion specifications However if you don t require fringe area re ception these two tuners repre sent excellent values NAD C 420 Photo 1 shows the C 420 front panel Just above the power switch on the left is a small green LED in dicator which turns amber in Standby mode A row of six push buttons selects Blend Memory FM Mute Mono AM FM Display modes and Preset Tune functions The white fluorescent display PHOTO 2 Front view of Parasound TDQ 150 60 audioXpress 6 02
13. dB from 20Hz to 15kHz The response curve above 10kHz may not be en tirely accurate In this area there are three filter responses the 75us pre emphasis and steep 16kHz LP filter on the audio that is fed to the FM signal generator and the 75us de emphasis in the tuner under test Audio crosstalk perfor Signals are changing in a car for example Neither possibility holds true in a fixed installation in the U S Only one station in our area broadcasts an RDS sig nal Clearly the NAD is intended for European markets as well as the U S The C 420 has RDS capability and a multilingual manual and it tunes in 0 05MHz incre ments requiring four steps between U S stations SOUND JUDGMENTS Given an adequate antenna all three tuners pro duced a completely acceptable sound One small ex ception all three grated on us occasionally during operatic soprano solos but we ascribed this effect to the listeners taste rather than to the tuners None of the tuners bested our reference SACD player Sony SCD C333ES sonically a not unexpected result Although all three tuners sounded pleasant each had a distinct sonic signature The sound of the NAD could best be characterized as inoffensive most de fects in reproduction were subtractive rather than ad ditive The midbass response of the NAD was slightly loose or boomy this effect was especially apparent on rock recordings The NAD s response seemed a bit re cessed at both frequency
14. e so there is a two page section on storing recalling and labeling presets Ancillary items include an AM loop antenna the usual FM di pole antenna and a set of generic RCA audio interconnects PARASOUND TDQ 150 The TDQ 150 Photo 2 is half the width height and depth of most conventional audio components It is designed for main or remote zone use in a custom sound system installation where space is at a premium The unit sits on four plastic feet with foam rubber in serts Holes are provided on the front plate for rack mounting The unit is very light and easy to move The front panel has six push buttons On Off FM AM Preset Up Down and Tune Up Down The yellow backlit LCD display shows band and frequency the se lected station preset and a stereo mono indicator The rear panel not shown has an IEC power receptacle with inte gral fuse holder external IR con trol port 12V trigger jack audio output jacks with gold plated shells and tin center contacts a two conductor AM antenna con nector and a threaded 75Q F type FM antenna jack The third pin of the AC receptacle is not connected to the chassis The TDQ 150 comes with a full function remote control with sep arate on and off codes Zpre Zone Preamplifier control and AC line and DC triggering capabilities To store memory presets you must use the remote While the opera tion is a bit more intuitive than the NAD C 420 I still prefer the
15. e chassis A schematic was not fur nished with the unit The display board connects to the tuner board through three Molex style connectors and the right side wiring loops through a toroidal ferrite core The trans former secondary is hard wired to the PC board where a pair of fuses deliver low voltage AC to the power supply The power trans former primary remains energized when the tuner is plugged in The front panel On Off switch operates a power supply relay that switches the low voltage secondary Linear regulators provide 5V DC and 12V DC to the circuitry The shielded MOSFET RF front end sits just behind the AM anten na connector A Sanyo LA3401 and LA1266 chip set handles PLL fre quency synthesis and AM FM tun ing operations The FM tuner appears to have a two stage IF section with ground braid straps connecting the IF transformer cases to the RF front end shield Parasound describes it as an ultra wideband IF section for low distortion flat response and a wide dynamic range Several audio transistors are located near the output jacks so the TDQ 150 also appears to have a discrete audio output stage MEASUREMENTS NAD FM SECTION I did not run any tests on the AM sections of either tuner except to make sure they were functional The C 420 does not invert polari ty The output impedance at 1kHz was 420Q delivering 550mV into a load of 100k The frequency response Fig 1 was within 1 2 0 5
16. esponse e pE ed a d a i Dem Mem Co eve cans a Sophisticated Driver Modeling and Advanced Box Design e Multiple drivers with isobaric push pull and bessel options 3 dual voice coil wiring options Expert Mode dynamically analyzes driver parameters e Design Harris Tech Pro software for Microsoft Windows can help you quickly create professional speaker designs Our software is easy to use with features like Welcome windows context sensitive balloon help extensive online manuals with tutorials and beautifully illustrated printed manuals THD N at 1kHz was 0 09 mono and 0 15 stereo THD from 100 10kHz mono did not exceed 0 28 The mono audio distortion residual waveform again showed mainly the second harmonic over laid with noise The TDQ 150 quieting character istics are shown in Fig 3 The sta tion auto search threshold was 20dBf There is no method for manually switching the FM Mute mode and the tuner switches back to mono at a high 40dBf right where the 50dB stereo quieting occurs The audio output didn t disap pear until I moved the FM test sig nal 150kHz to either side of the tuned center frequency probably reflecting the reduced sensitivity of the two stage IF design This is not an issue with the U S 200kHz FM radio station spacings There was no overload at the maximum RF input of 100dBf Stereo audio output was only 0 3dB below the mono audio at 65dBf signal
17. formance in this review ANTENNAS The reception quality of any tuner critically depends on the antenna connected to it For all our serious listening we used a multi element roof mounted Radio Shack special Out of curiosity we briefly connected the twin lead dipoles supplied in each box to their respective tuners Because most of the stations we listen to are about a hundred miles away we didn t anticipate satisfactory performance from the dipoles Table J lists the number of stations in our area that each tuner received cleanly When we say cleanly we mean with lack of noise and sibilant distortion Many more stations were intelligi ble from a DXer s standpoint Practically speaking all these sensitivities were comparable except for the NAD s reception with the in door dipole All three tuners exhibited good sensitivity when attached to a real antenna Even if your system hasn t suffered from them be fore the introduction of an external antenna that is grounded for safety reasons often causes a ground loop The antenna safety ground is likely to be located far from the audio system ground and may easily be at a different potential These problems may be exacer bated by a grounded tuner such as the Parasound but can be present even if the tuner itself is unground ed Numerous companies including Jensen Mondial Tributaries and MIT manufacture products intended to break these ground loops APPEARANCE The NAD
18. in the NAD C 420 the Parasound TDQ 150 and the ADCOM GFI 55511 we spent hours flipping through the FM band finding a huge variety of music some pieces famil lar some not We ran across Navajo chants opera rock symphonies and Spanish music not to mention the local deejay who termed himself the Commissar of Your Radio Commune Eventually the situation got out of hand When the public radio station ran a long program of Colombian music found myself dancing around the living room to the Swamp Cumbia Halfway through the song turned and ran smack into a scandalized eleven year old Cut it out Mom he growled Whatever for asked He considered the matter briefly Cause if you don t I m gonna get out the video camera and put you on the Internet Oh Perhaps it was time to stop dancing and start writing this review REVIEWING TUNERS An FM tuner review requires a different listening ap proach from reviews of other components Local FM stations rarely provide a clean uncompressed sig nal Even if their signal quality is good they typically don t play the same piece repeatedly for the conve nience of reviewers Obviously under these circum stances a listening critique of tuners can t be as rig orous as critiques of other components But at least three aspects of tuner performance beyond lab test results have some importance First listening tests may reveal some sonic differ ences
19. orward and easily understood describing them here takes more time than learning to use them The NAD C 420 also features 30 presets that are ac cessible sequentially from the front panel A remote control is optional with the NAD it s the same remote Supplied with the matching NAD preamp and the manufacturer doesn t want to charge you twice If you buy the tuner but not the preamp we would strongly recommend purchasing the remote separately Many of the NAD s features were not self explanato ry we frequently had to refer to the manual The tech nique for erasing presets which required multiple timed pushes of two buttons seemed particularly opaque Different buttons operated in different ways Some toggled front panel lights and some didn t We had to push some for a certain number of seconds to enable one feature and a different number of seconds to en able another The NAD uses a seek mode of tuning it stops at every strong station whether you want it to or not This characteristic becomes less important once the pre sets are set but can lengthen the process of moving from one end of the band to the other This tuner also incorporates RDS a useful feature f nearby stations transmit RDS information and f the TABLE 1 NUMBER OF STATIONS RECEIVED CLEANLY FOR EACH TUNER ANTENNA COMBINATION OUTDOOR INDOOR ANTENNA DIPOLE NAD C 420 25 19 Parasound TDQ 150 29 26 ADCOM GFT 555l1 27 25 TABLE 2 PARASOUND TDQ 150
20. roduced by the ADCOM were good without being obtrusive Again with this tuner we had the impression that the dynamic range was limited more by the transmitted signal than by the tuner FINAL THOUGHTS NM All three tuners had a pleasant sound none pro duced fatigue even after hours of listening To choose among them focus on which specific charac teristics mean most to you If looks are your top pri ority buy the NAD If you plan to make extensive modifications pick the NAD or the ADCOM you ll have more working room If you want a spare precise sound with good imaging and good dynamics go for the Parasound If you prefer a fuller sound again with good dynamics look for the ADCOM on the used equipment market DM As with most decisions the choice of best tuner in this group depends on which features are most important to the buyer Both the NAD and the Parasound are currently available you would need to purchase a used ADCOM Both newer tuners have automation features remote control DC switching and so on that are not available on the ADCOM The ADCOM was designed as a stand alone stereo tuner while both the NAD and the Parasound seemed in tended to be part of a home theater system Both the NAD and the Parasound are visually inter esting although in different ways like the small size of the Parasound but this same size would make it less appropriate in a stack of 17 components unless you pair it with Par
21. screen shows the band and fre quency of the station being tuned FM stereo whether the station is a memory preset and whether Blend and FM Mute are engaged It also has a vertical seven bar graph sig nal strength indicator Pressing the display button cy cles the display to RDS program service Another push cycles it to RDS text The display then returns to the default mode after a few seconds The infrared sensor is lo cated on the left side of the dis play window A rocker switch on the right side of the unit is for the Preset Tune functions The tuner chassis is black paint ed steel and the cover is held on with five screws The front bezel is plastic and the unit sits on four plastic feet with elastomer rings on the bottom There is adequate finger space under the unit to easily lift it The rear panel not shown has the attached two prong polarized AC line cord a 12V trigger jack the NAD Link input and output jacks stereo audio jacks with gold plated shells and tin center contacts a two conductor AM www audioXpress com antenna connector and a threaded 75Q F type FM antenna jack The C 420 provides up to 30 sta tion presets which you can use in any combination of AM and FM stations FM Mute and FM Blend status information is stored with each FM preset Empty presets are skipped over during tuning to pro vide quicker access to the stored stations The preset information is stored in non vola
22. tile EEPROM memory which provides permanent power off storage Many tuners use super capacitors to hold the pre set memory in CMOS chips for a limited time maybe a month or so My own NAD 4155 uses a now tired super cap and it must be powered up at least once a week to maintain all the presets FM Mute Mode switches the C 420 to mono and disengages the muting circuitry so you can manu ally tune weak stations FM Blend provides a means to automatically reduce noise and hiss on weak sta tions while still retaining some stereo separation Once the signal level drops below a certain thresh old it will revert to mono The tuning increments for FM are in steps of 50kHz The AM tuning steps are 10kHz 9kHz for the 230V version The RDS PS Program Service automatically displays the name of the radio station you are listening to The RDS RT Radio Text button displays any additional informa tion broadcast by the radio sta tion such as program format song titles and so on You can operate the C 420 with one of NAD s system remote con trols via the front panel IR sensor or through the rear panel NAD Link jacks You can also switch tuner AC power from amps pre amps and AV processors that use the 12V trigger system Eight pages of the 43 page man ual are devoted to instructions in English Other languages are French German Spanish Italian Portuguese and Swedish Pro gramming isn t all that intuitiv
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search