In recent articles here on SoundStage! Access, I’ve made a couple of references to procuring an NAD C 3050 as my new reference integrated amplifier. I’ve had more than a few people ask me about the differences between the regular production model and the Limited Edition release I reviewed a little over a year ago.
Instead of answering them all individually, I thought there might be more value in showing rather than telling. So, if you’re itching to have this question answered and you want to play along at home, open up my post documenting the unboxing of the C 3050 LE in another tab or window or device, and let’s dig in.
At first glance, the packaging for the two integrated amps looks remarkably similar. The C 3050 is obviously missing the “LE” branding, but other than that, you might mistake them for one another unless you look really closely.
And I mean specifically very closely at the side of the box, not the front. The C 3050 LE came with the BluOS-D module built in, which means the long-since-sold-out integrated amp supported Dirac Live room correction and BluOS music streaming, not to mention advanced bass management, right out of the box. The wide-release C 3050, on the other hand, can be ordered with the module pre-installed ($1899, all prices USD) or without ($1399).
That actually makes the C 3050 Blu-OS D quite the value, because the C 3050 LE came in at $1972. So what do you lose to cover the $73 you’ll save on the mass-market release? We’ll get there. Hold your Galineers Cobs. Long story short, though—if you order the C 3050 BluOS-D, you’ll also get an extra sticker on the side of the packaging hinting at the goodies that lie within.
Crack open the box, and the presentation of the non-LE amp is remarkably similar to that of its more exclusive sibling. Same accessories box. Same remote control. Roughly the same pack-in literature. And of course, the same tantalizing peek at the amp’s cabinet and connectivity.
Take the unboxing one step further, and things still look remarkably similar. The non-LE C 3050 is wrapped and protected identically to its anniversary-edition forebear. But I think the photos make it clear that, although nice, the packaging and presentation aren’t about swank. As I’ve said before, this is the Workingman’s Integrated Amp. So you don’t get things like the origami-esque folded foam paper you see covering Marantz’s mid-tier-and-up stuff these days. You won’t find any white gloves, either. There’s a sort of get-the-job-done-well-but-unfussily vibe here that I just love. No corners are cut, but neither are they buffed and polished and bedazzled.
One curious difference I did notice in the unboxing process is that while the C 3050 LE came with both the A and B speaker binding posts plugged, the wide-release model comes with the A speakers plugged and the B speakers unplugged. Since I prefer bananas for my speaker-level connections, I dug those plugs out of the A speaker outputs and moved them down to the B speakers.
I have to say, the binding posts are still the only thing I don’t thoroughly love about NAD’s electronics these days. They feel a little small if you have Wookiee paws, as I do. They’re kinda plasticky looking. But it obviously wasn’t enough to turn me off this integrated amp. And they do their job well, no doubt. My beefs are mostly ergonomic and aesthetic.
Moving over to the other side of the back panel, we see another obvious difference: the missing 50th-anniversary numbered plate. Everything else about the back panel, though, is exactly the same. Same I/O. Same configuration. But hang on—we’re not entirely done.
By far the biggest difference between the C 3050 LE and the plain old C 3050 is that the former had a genuine open-grained walnut cabinet, whereas the latter has a walnut-finished, vinyl-wrapped cabinet. I kinda went into this unboxing process expecting this to be a bummer that I could live with. But it isn’t a bummer at all. If anything, the mass-produced, faux-wood cabinet of the non-LE looks like the real deal from anything more than a foot away.
What’s more, its tolerances are better. It’s actually a step up in terms of fit-and-finish. There aren’t as many idiosyncratic gaps. Yes, if you turn the unit on its face and look at the underside of the back corner, you can see where the grain patterns intersect at right angles—which wouldn’t happen if this were the real meal deal.
But generally speaking, I don’t interact with my stereo system much from behind and below. At least not day-to-day. So I kinda think the cheaper non-LE version of the C 3050 is ever-so-slightly nicer.
Of course, one of the biggest selling points of the C 3050 for me was pure vibes. Load up a tune, press play, sit back for some listening enjoyment, and those dancing VU meters just make the whole endeavor more pleasurable. And that’s true whether we’re talking about the C 3050 or the C 3050 LE.
I have to say, being the unapologetic NAD fanboy that I am, I’m not ruling out buying an LE on the secondary market if I ever find one and the price is right. Somewhere out there, there’s a unit with an edition number that matches my birthday. I was born in 1972, after all. Now that I think about it, there are two, so long as I’m flexible enough to accept the mm-dd-yyyy United States date format or the dd-mm-yyyy format from more civilized parts of the world. If I’m flush with cash and I find one of those for sale, I might snatch it up as a collector’s item.
But as a daily driver in my main stereo system, I couldn’t be happier with the non-LE C 3050. The differences between the two editions, as I’ve said, boil down to the fact that the BluOS-D module is optional on the C 3050, and I think its faux-wood vinyl cabinet looks nicer, with tighter gaps and cleaner corners, as long as you’re not inspecting it with a magnifying glass.
So if you’ve fallen in love with the C 3050 and you’re feeling some FOMO about not having snagged an LE model, I wouldn’t fret about it. I think the wider release is actually a nicer-looking piece of kit, and it’s every bit as good under the hood.
. . . Dennis Burger
dennisb@soundstagenetwork.com
