Will a NAD C326BEE plus a Pro-ject phono stage fit your budget? Even then you will still be missing the bluetooth feature.
I know this will sound ridiculous but your best option seems to be an AVR-X4300H, that is going for $799 on Amazon.com at the momemnt, a little over your budget.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01KZRPNIQ/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all
That will do everything you want it to do, but in the UK and Europe they probably cost even more, and again it does seem odd to use a multi-channel AVR for stereo, though practical you would get better bang for the dollars.
Hey there, I am looking for some advice, maybe you can help me out ..
I have classic Technics 1210 turntables and Tannoy Mercury M3 speakers (8 Ohm). Until now I had a Technics Sa-AX530 Amp, a combination that made me quite happy for many years. Unfortunately the output for one speaker channel stopped working recently, so I decided maybe its time for a new amp.
Music comes either from vinyl or bluetooth, ranging from Aphex Twin to Ella Fitzgerald to Debussy, so my input priorities are Phono MM and Bluetooth with a wide variety of styles (of course a line input should be there too and more options for home cinema etc. would be appreciated but aren't a must).
So after some research I decided for the Pro-Ject MaiA beacuse it got decent reviews, had a lot of input options and that for a good price. When it arrived I was quite disappointed with the sound, especially over the phono input. There is a lot of noise in the high frequencies which I didn't hear before, and my old amp sounded a lot warmer and nicer. The bluetooth input sounds quite fine though. Still I decided to return it, thinking that maybe I should have my old Technics repaired, or go for a different new amp.
I was also thinking about the NAD D3020, so that's about my price range, up to 500€. Would have any recommendation in mind?
Thanks a lot, Bastian
Difficult. In which country do you reside?
I would not try and repair the Technics. I had a look at the schematics, and like a lot of gear from that brand at that time, the power amps are IC and NLA.
NAD gear has a reputation for poor reliability, and I think it is justified.
As Peng says the easy solution is an AVR. However with space concerns in Europe compared to the US that is not always convenient. I gather this rig is largely for two channel audio.
This is not well catered for at reasonable cost anymore, without going the AVR route, which is crazy.
One of my brothers wanted to have Blue Tooth. Now you can adapt good vintage gear to the modern age. Fortunately he has Quad electronics, Quad 34 pre, Quad 405 II amp,Quad FM 4 tuner, Garrard 401 turntable with SME arm. So the solution was to add a Blue Tooth receiver with an analog output.
If you want video you can add and HDMI switcher to a TV and use a DAC from a TV audio out to the analog rig.
I think a lot must be going this route, as the price of good older gear is rising fast and in Europe there are a lot of restoration sites, especially for Quad.
I note today there is a Quad 44 with a buy it now price of $2400! However, most are a lot less than that. Since you are into vinyl, nothing does it better than Quad electronics. This is mainly because Peter Walker had ingenious ways of compensating for less than perfectly cut LPs.
So since you are in Europe you might want to look at better older gear, especially Quad.
