Improving an award-winning design is always a delicate task. Adding performance and value to an already highly optimised design requires vision, talent, and expertise. Fortunately for our music-loving customers, all three are on clear display in the new C356BEE. NAD fans already know that the initials “BEE” stand for Bjorn Erik Edvardsen, our Director of Advanced Development. BEE has once again applied lessons learned from our leading Masters Series M3 amplifier to the C356BEE.
With the very high dynamic power and low impedance drive capability of our NAD PowerDrive™ circuit, the C356BEE is able to accurately control difficult to drive loudspeakers while sounding musical, detailed, coherent and relaxed. Even at elevated listening levels, our exclusive Soft Clipping feature is there to save both your ears and your speakers from damaging clipping distortion.
Musical performance is only part of the C356BEE’s story. We have also included our upgrade-friendly Modular Design Construction (MDC) to allow the addition of our superb PP375 phono stage or other yet-to-be-announced MDC Modules to enhance the capabilities of this affordable amplifier.
The New improved speaker binding posts allow for two pairs of speakers with remote controlled switching. The C356BEE makes exclusively uses sonically transparent sealed reed relay switches for all inputs (despite their added expense), including a front panel mini-jack to easily enjoy music from your iPod or other portable music player. This internal architecture minimises signal path length and keeps resistance extremely low allowing the subtlest details to emerge from your music. Musically satisfying tone controls allow necessary correction to your favourite music without adding colouration or distortion. Rather than design good tone controls, many competitors simply delete them; at NAD, we give you the option to bypass tone controls for those perfect recordings in your collection. The remote can also control other NAD products, like Radio Tuners and CD Players, giving complete system control.
A major goal in the design of the C356BEE was to reduce energy consumption without sacrificing performance. PowerDrive™ already allows the C356BEE to have the dynamic capability of an amplifier twice as powerful—and twice as power hungry. The C356BEE offers <0.5W standby consumption and includes a convenient all off ‘vacation’ switch. We make every effort to reduce our environmental impact by manufacturing the C356BEE without heavy metals and other hazardous substances, and by using recycled and recyclable materials where possible.
Able to drive the most complex loudspeakers to their full musical potential, the C356BEE remains eminently affordable. In fact, we invite you to compare the C356BEE to amplifiers costing two to three times more. With features like Preamp Out and MDC, the C356BEE can grow with your needs and desires, enhancing both sustainability and value.
With 80W of continuous power (both channels) our C356BEE has the lowest levels of distortion and noise available in its price class. We use the most demanding criterion for performance measurement: Full Disclosure Power, measuring distortion under the most extreme conditions of low impedance loads and frequency extremes, rather than the easy 1kHz/8ohm test used by many of our competitors. We use this stricter performance criterion because it more closely matches the demands of real music and real loudspeakers. Maintaining specified distortion at 4 ohms and at 20Hz and 20kHz is a much more difficult achievement.
