Vintage Vibes, Modern Guts

NAD C 3050 LE INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

- Daniel Kumin

I LOVE VINTAGE. Of my four motorcycles, which included a beloved 1958 Triumph T20 Tiger Cub, the 1989 Honda NT650 is the newest. Of my dozen or so guitars, my 1964 Strat and 1966 D-18 are the undisputed stars, while a 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb guitar amp is the apple of my ear. I’ll never part with any of these; just pile them upon my bier when the time comes. But vintage hi-fi? Vintage hi-fi?

I lived vintage hi-fi, and it wasn’t all rainbows and ponies. I loved my heavily modified Dynaco Stereo 70 tube power amps (a pair, bridged), but they were finicky as hell, consumed kilowatt/ hours like Charles Bukowski at an open bar, and heated my third-floor walkup to heroically Finnish levels. My Thorens TD-125/Rabco setup was stone-cold S.O.T.A. when you got all the geometry dialed in just so, which happened two and even three times per year.

So, vintage audio—not so much. But modern, vintage-look gear is another story, one that is indeed fast becoming, as they say, a thing. For just two examples, the rebirth of KLH features a ‘70s throwback-look reimagining of the iconic Model 3, and Canadian stalwart PSB is doing the same dance with a visually authentic but thoroughly modernly re-engineered version of its original design.

NAD, another Canadian and indeed a corporate stablemate to PSB, is now doing the vintage, with a Limited Edition C 3050 LE streaming integrated amplifier. Visually, the C 3050 LE, is not shy about its “vintage” vibe: a deep black front panel with gold graphics in flowing script proudly re-states the “New Audio Dimension” label, a moniker that dates from the firm’s birth in 1972 but was abandoned relatively soon thereafter.