NAD 7020 Receiver

The NAD 7020 receiver is pretty much a NAD 3020 with an analog tuner attached. Dropping a tuner into an integrated chassis doesn't work all that literally, especially in the analog era. Where to put all that tuner display acreage? And the tuner board or boards? The tuning capacitor? And the extra knobs and meters?

NAD solves all this by starting with the 3o20 with a spartan front panel with lots of space for a tuner display. The power LEDs are sacrificed for the tuning knob, but otherwise the family look and feel is retained. And sorry, no meters, just a pair of LEDs under the glass. Here is the NAD 7020:

I have had this unit in my possession for about 10 years. It worked well for the first several, but developed a significant amount of noise and was shelved. I finally got ambitious enough to get it back on the road. Here is the unit under the hood:



The layout has been modified to accommodate the tuning capacitor in the middle of the unit. Immediately to the right on the main board is the AM section and much of the FM section. At the far right is what looks to be a large single board which is in fact two boards. At the front is the FM finals. In back is the phono board. They are both stabilized by the metal connector in the middle that attaches to the side of the chassis.

The main amplifier section is no longer on the main board but is mounted vertically right in the middle of the unit. It is a dead ringer for its analog in the 3020.

The output transistors have been rotated 90 degree and are clearly visible just to the left of the main amplifier board.

The tone control circuitry is strung out at the front, just behind the controls and appear identical to the 3020.

It should be noted that the very convenient horizontal back deck of the 3020 has been sacrificed to accommodate the added circuitry and maintain a similarly sized box. Too bad.

All 3 boards were easily popped from their connectors and a total of 79 capacitors were replaced with new Panasonic FCs. It should be noted that I really dislike replacing the pair of small value caps around the bass control. Next time I will find some smaller fingers. As with the 3020 the main power supply capacitors were modestly upgraded to 3300 mfd.

The 7020 sounds as nice as the 3020 with the benefit of a very nice tuner. The tuner has only a centering mechanism akin to the Advent 300, but is very musical.

A final note: the front panel of the 7020 is much stouter than that of the 3020 and not nearly as prone to damage at the corners.