Although NAD was founded in England in 1972 as New Acoustic Dimension, my introduction to the brand was in 1980. I bought an NAD 3020 integrated amplifier after hearing it successfully drive Acoustic Research’s current-hungry AR9 loudspeakers. Designed in England by Bjørn-Erik Edvardsen1 and manufactured in Taiwan, the ridiculously inexpensive 3020—it cost just $135 back then—showed that an amplifier didn’t need machined faceplates, intimidating heatsinks, or technically glamorous components to be able to drive real-world speakers. In 2002, the 3020 was nominated by Stereophile’s writers and editors as one of the 100 most significant audio products in the magazine’s first 40 years.2
NAD was little known in 1980, but the 3020 put the brand on the map, the company selling 1.1 million units over the amplifier’s lifetime. NAD subsequently went through ownership changes and in 1999 was purchased by Canada’s Lenbrook Group, the brand’s Canadian distributor since 1978.
Stereophile has favorably reviewed many NAD amplifiers over the decades. One of the most recent was the Master Series M10 class-D streaming integrated amplifier, which I purchased to use as my daily driver after I reviewed it in January 2020.3 The M10’s price included a free license for Dirac Live low-frequency room equalization, which I found invaluable with my long-term reference standmounts, the KEF LS50s.4 So when I learned that NAD was introducing a 50th Anniversary integrated amplifier, the C 3050 LE, which also included Dirac Live, I asked for a review sample.
The C 3050 LE (Anniversary Edition)
The LE in the amplifier’s name stands for Limited Edition—just
