newman (10/29/82)
Has anyone heard when/where the new NAD 4150 supertuner will be coming out? I've seen several product announcements (Stereo Review among others) but nothing from the stores. It sounds like an incredible product.
newman (03/30/83)
Anyone shopping for a superb tuner should check out the March Audio for the NAD 4150 review. Leonard Feldman says several things like "the most sensitive tuner we have ever measured", "one of the most significant achievements in RF circuit design ever", "surpasses Schotz's earlier design, the Sherwood Micro-CPU 100, in all respects by a wide margin". The latter cost over $2000 a few years back. A few measurement highlights: IHF sensitivity (30 db quieting?) 1.2 uV (!) capture ratio 0.9 db with weak signal, thd around .04 - .06, separation 50 db 50 Hz-10kHz, s/n in stereo (strong signal) 80 db. Price: $338 US (!). Now for my question (I have the NAD). I was a/b-ing it with a Macintosh MR78, with a dipole, with cable, and with a good Yagi rooftop antenna with rotator. The sound quality on strong signals was very similar, although there was an audible difference. The Mac sounded slightly warmer and mushier, the NAD had a cleaner sound, noticeable in the high end. With the dipole and cable antennas, the NAD received at least as many stations as the Mac and was often significantly quieter. However, with the Yagi antenna, a really bizarre thing happened. When the antenna was pointed sw, the Mac received stations normally, but the NAD became so horribly noisy and distorted as to be unlistenable; the signal strength leds showed high signal all over the dial, even when there were no stations. When the antenna was rotated to se, the problem vanished and the NAD was fine again. The thing is, I don't think it could be signal overload from the antenna because the NAD can take several VOLTS (although the Mac can take 12 volts!). What gives? What could produce such behaviour? Could a nearby ham station do this? As far as I know, there are no nearby fm transmitters (suburban neighbourhood). Any ideas by mail or net would be appreciated. Ken Newman Univ. of Toronto
ijb@druxv.UUCP (12/17/83)
I just bought a NAD 4150 tuner and I would like to share my impressions of it with net folks. The NAD replaced an old Dynaco FM-5 on which the muting circuit failed. The NAD is a bit quieter than the Dynaco (s/n and all that). The NAD has much greater separation and significantly better high frequency response. The operation of the NAD is very simple and has proven to satisfy my requirements. I have only used the NAD in suburban environments so I can't comment on its multipath rejection characteristics, but it is supposed to do quite well there. As for fringe reception, it seems to do fairly well, it does bring in weak signals better than the Dynaco. Overall it seems to be a good little unit, but I can't really prove that it was worth $300 when there are more consumer oriented companies (Pioneer, Sony, &c.) selling good quality units for $150 to $200 (discount prices of course). --Ira