NAD C440 Tuners

NAD C440 Tuners 

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-10 of 15  
[Dec 27, 2000]
Richard Ochoa
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Sound is musical,clear,sound stage wide,with deep bass;

Weakness:

controls comfusing

Live NPR & Opera broadcast sound like live performances. I use this with an Ambiosonic decoder with 4 speakers. Instrumental placement is superb. I use Kimber PBJ cables. A Radio Shack Yagi outdoor Antenna & quad shielded 75 Ohm cable give great reception.

Similar Products Used:

Denon

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Nov 30, 2000]
Erik ..
Casual Listener

Strength:

Nad link, good sound

Weakness:

Not so cheap

I think it's good

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
[Nov 10, 2000]
Gokhan Senturk
Audiophile

Strength:

Nice design front pannel

Weakness:

Too much

This is very bad tuner. I tested this tuner with all tuners which written above. At same antenna and same conditions, difference is obvious. Seperation (which is looking good in technical specifications)isn't good. Sensitivity is high but in practical you allways listen noise. Some channels which are receipt with all other tuner doesn't work.
So I gave it back.
NAD's amplifiers have realy good sound and they made very quality and cheap products but they must stopped to produced tuner.

Similar Products Used:

Sansui TU-33, Nakamichi ST-3s, Onkyo T-4511, Sony ST-SB920

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Dec 10, 1999]
Stanislav Horacek
Audiophile

Strength:

Deep and tight bass. Clean, open and spacious midrange and treble.

Weakness:

Build quality. Not enough functions as other tuners!

I am using NAD 440 for 6 months and found it very listenable! Thanks god I did not know for reviews of What hi fi and Hifi-choice, and I would not buy it. But I am glad now, because I do not agree what they stated, 'cause this tuner gives open and clean sound with deep and tight bass. Ideal partner for NAD C340.
I listen with Kef Coda 9 and I am very satisfied so far!
Go NAD!

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Dec 23, 1999]
Chris Wheeler
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

good design, affordable, decent performance

Weakness:

programming stations difficult at first, no remote

This tuner is a good compliment to any system where radio isn't the top priority. Its relatively inexpensive and offers good solid performance. As with any tuner, when coupled with a decent antenna, performance will be improved. The design is aesthetically pleasing, but at first it is difficult to program and change stations. All in all this is a decent tuner for the casual radio listener.

Similar Products Used:

none

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
4
[Sep 29, 2001]
Brian
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Tunes in .025 increments, 30 pre-sets in three banks, nice blend and mute features, remote capable with NAD system remote.

Weakness:

None

First off, this a tuner, OK. So if you are expecting excellent sound from a tuner and you do not have at least a six foot antenna on your roof, then don't read this and write your own review about how mediocre this tuner is like most of the others have done for the C-440. Or go by a Magnum Dynalab unit and whine in that forum. Enough about that, this is a very good tuner, its specifications are excellent and it performs very well on good signals. My unit was not warped, thankfully. This unit tunes in .025 increments, meaning that if you want to tune into 97.1, you can go from 96.25, 96.50, 96.75, 97.0, 97.25, etc... Very impressive feature, it is like having an analog tuner with all of the digital features you want. The remote is fine, you can roam through your pre-sets on any one of the three banks, what more would you want, I don't know of any $300 tuner that lets you enter a frequency via the remote. I mean you have thirty pre-sets so you never have to dial in a freq., simply put your 10 favorites on bank A and you can push through all of them in the time it would take to punch in one station manually. You can tune completely manual, or search for new stations either with the mute off (more sensitive) or with mute on (less sensitive) or search through the presets. I have owned the 4155, a nice tuner for sure but very limited in features compared with this unit. The 4300 had a few more features but this is FM. I can not tell the difference between one tuner or another. Look, if you want great AM/FM, put your $$$ into an expensive roof mounted antenna, your wasting your time with the tuner, they can't perform magic. I own the C370 integrated amp, an excellent product but I almost didn't buy this tuner because all of the bad press in this forum, but I'm very glad I did for the reasons stated above. For the price, it is five stars. Buy it, enjoy it, don't be afraid, especially if you have the C-370 because the remote is perfect with it, with NAD link, you can select any bank, any preset quickly, that's 30 stations on the remote, that is pretty cool, the 4300 gave you 16, the 4155 5 or 10 I can't remember but I think only five.

Similar Products Used:

NAD 4300, 4155.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Oct 09, 1999]
Bobby C
Audiophile

Strength:

Pulls stations well, clean sound

Weakness:

somewhat confusing controls

I needed a tuner for my new system (Classe CAP150 integrated & Goldmund 39DA++ CD player) but didn't need to go as high end as say my cd source. I listen to the tuner primarily for NPR & some jazz radio (WPFW's excellent G Strings on Sunday morning), not enough listening time to go high end. I tried looking around the used market for an older NAD, Dynalab, McIntosh, etc., but with little luck. I found it hard to find tuners in audiophile stores, many don't stock them. I did find the C440 and got it for $300.

Praise: Sounds good, pulls stations well, everything I was hoping for.

Complaint: 1. It came slightly warped. When put on a flat surface, it wobbled, it looked as though someone very strong had grabbed diagonal corners & twisted it a bit. Now sitting underneath my close to $8,000 worth of other equipment, it bugged me. I took it back to the dealer & they agreed & replaced it with another one just like it - same problem. I gave up on the return, I need the tuner & have gotten used to it (moving it to the bottom shelf has helped).

2. My biggest complaint (since the above could have been shipping or storage) is I'm not a fan of their controls. They of course have a preset system, I think you can store 30 stations (I need only a half dozen). The problem is selecting those present stations. I suppose they thought that since you can store 30 stations, you don't want 30 different buttons. I'd rather have 10 or 20 presets with buttons. Their selection system is hitting the same button that initially selects the stations, you have to hit another button first. The problem I have is two fold. First, your selections are accessed by a touch of the button, one hit per station. So let's say you want to get to a station that you saved as the 5th, you would hit the button 5 times. My bigger problem is since this button has two functions (both setting/seeking and preset), you first have to make sure you are in the right mode. Not exactly rocket science, however I rarely change stations. Since I don't do it a lot, I always have to think about it first, am I in the right mode, very confusing. I'd much rather have a different present button for each station.

Again good sound, poor interface. Not simple, unless you do it a fair amount & remember the instructions.

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
3
[Oct 09, 1999]
Bobby C
Audiophile

Strength:

Pulls stations well, clean sound

Weakness:

somewhat confusing controls

I needed a tuner for my new system (Classe CAP150 integrated & Goldmund 39DA++ CD player) but didn't need to go as high end as say my cd source. I listen to the tuner primarily for NPR & some jazz radio (WPFW's excellent G Strings on Sunday morning), not enough listening time to go high end. I tried looking around the used market for an older NAD, Dynalab, McIntosh, etc., but with little luck. I found it hard to find tuners in audiophile stores, many don't stock them. I did find the C440 and got it for $300.

Praise: Sounds good, pulls stations well, everything I was hoping for.

Complaint: 1. It came slightly warped. When put on a flat surface, it wobbled, it looked as though someone very strong had grabbed diagonal cornerns & twisted it a bit. Now sitting underneath my close to $8,000 worth of other equipment, it bugged me. I took it back to the dealer & they agreed & replaced it with another one just like it - same problem. I gave up on the return, I need the tuner & have gotten used to it (moving it to the bottom shelf has helped).

2. My biggest complaint (since the above could have been shipping or storage) is I'm not a fan of their controls. They of course have a preset system, I think you can store 30 stations (I need only a half dozen). The problem is slecting those present stations. I suppose they thought that since you can store 30 stations, you don't want 30 different buttons. I'd rather have 10 or 20 presets with buttons. Their selection system is hitting the same button that initially selects the stations, you have to hit another button first. The problem I have is two fold. First, your selections are accessed by a touch of the button, one hit per station. So let's say you want to get to a station that you saved as the 5th, you would hit the button 5 times. My bigger problem is since this button has two functions (both setting/seeking and preset), you first have to make sure you are in the right mode. Not exactly rocket science, however I rarely change stations. Since I don't do it alot, I always have to think about it first, am I in the right mode, very confusing. I'd much rather have a different present button for each station.

Again good sound, poor interface. Not simple, unless you do it a fair amount & remember the instructions.

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
3
[May 20, 2001]
Gary Fostel
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Good sensitivity, selectivity, etc. Not fabulous, but good. A few handy features, including a mute function that deadens the insterstation noise and allows or disallows reception fo weak stations. It also has a blend function to allow a trade-off of S/N ratio and channel seperation. This is a handy feature if you live well away from a large city and have only a few good strong local signals. An additional odd sort of feature is that the remote that controls my exceptional NAD integrated amp (370) also controls the NAD440 tuner.

Weakness:

The controls, esp the remote, are a bit clumsey. The remote can do no more than pick one of the preset stations and this is done in an odd way. All I realy want is the ability to punch in the station frequency and be done with it. Not offered. Also, the RDS facility is not supported in the North American version. Not sure how many local stations support RDS, but some might. The European version does support RDS. The "mute" feature has the implicite "feature" that the tuner switches to mono when the mute function is engaged. Not required to go that way, based on electronic principles. The setup instructions are also a bit thin. The AM antenna, for example, has a complex bit of plastic that folds together to make a 3-D support base, but there is not a whisper about how this happenns. Sort of a little spatial reasoning test. The tuner comes with a cheesy little dipole antenna and a connector to link it to a coax socket, but the conector is not even threaded. It just pushes over the threaded connector on the tuner. Another nickle ninety-five and they could have used a better bit of hardware here. I should add, that I am badly spoiled on the tuner front, by having had a virtuosso tuner from Heath that I used for many years. More below.

Maybe a bit pricey for what you get. This is balanced, in my mind, by the spectacular deal you get with the NAD 370 integrated amp and the tandom of the amp and tuner is better than mixing brands and replicating remote control units.

Similar Products Used:

Heath AR 1500 receiver. The tuner in this classis was just incredible for it's day, and still stands out, almost 30 years later. Somewhat better specs that the NAD tuner, and a few nice features. The mute was level controled, not a binary option, so youncould,decide what quality station you would pick up. The mute also did not dump any effort at stereo reception. The knob was a bit of a pain, as was station drift and other characteristics of pre-digital tuning, but it had a signal strength and center channel meter to allow optimal tuning of a station for a few hours anyway. The NAD 440 is not quite up to the Heath AR1500 level, but few tuners were/are. On the plus side, a tuner substantially better than the NAD is well outside my budget. The NAD controls are clumsey, but of course, pretty slick compared to a knob and a long back-lit band. (:-)

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
3
[May 10, 2001]
Keith
Audiophile

Strength:

Nice looking. Station naming facility. Solid build. Remote compatible. Decent sound.

Weakness:

Not super sensitive as expected from an NAD tuner. Not the warmth that NAD tuners have been praised for in the past.

My strengths and weaknesses sum it up pretty accurately. This blows away the cute little Parasound, and is significantly better sounding than any other product I've used. I wish I owned the NAD 412, but I couldn't find a used one. My main dissapointment is the sensitivity - even with a Terk.

Similar Products Used:

Parasound TDQ-1500, ADS T2, Various Onkyos, Adcom GTP 500II and GTP 450, NAD 917

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
3
Showing 1-10 of 15  

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