NAD – C 399 Hybrid Digital Integrated Amplifier

Sonic Precision: NAD C 399 Hybrid Digital Integrated Amplifier Plays Music from all Your Digital and Analog Sources with Astounding Power and Magnificent Detail

The NAD C 399 Hybrid Digital Integrated Amplifier represents the ideal merger of flexible power and sonic precision. It takes NAD’s commitment to sonic excellence (and lasting value) to a whole new level. The C 399 is the first amplifier to incorporate the latest generation of NAD’s proprietary Modular Design Construction (MDC) technology. MDC2 allows you to add optional modules that provide functions such as BluOS multiroom music streaming and Dirac Live room correction.

Vinyl lovers have embraced the C 399 because it gracefully handles analog and digital sources. Its moving-magnet (MM) phono stage delivers ultra-precise RIAA equalization, extremely low noise, and high overload margins. The phono preamp features an innovative circuit that suppresses the infrasonic noise present on LPs, but without compromising the bass response.

Additionally, the C 399 employs NAD’s Hypex Hybrid Digital nCore amplifier circuitry, which until now has been available only on Masters Series amplifiers. The digital section is built around a 32-bit/384kHz ESS Sabre DAC, the same chip used in NAD’s acclaimed M10 and M33 Masters Series amplifiers. With its Hybrid Digital nCore output stage and high-resolution ESS Sabre DAC, the C 399 can reproduce all your digital and analog sources with a level of excitement and refinement that is unprecedented for a Classic-series integrated amplifier. Welcome to a new world of sonic precision and flexible power in an integrated amp.

NAD audio engineers ensured that the C 399 has a rock-solid foundation, including a precise volume control with accurate channel balance, low-noise circuits, and carefully engineered input and output impedances.

Thanks to NAD’s innovative MDC2 platform, the C 399 will keep pace with future developments. Essentially, MDC2 prevents obsolescence. The C 399 can serve as the hub of a world-class music system today, and for years to come. Plus, this powerful, convenient integrated amplifier comes with the 100% Music Direct Satisfaction Guarantee.

“The NAD C 399 Hybrid Digital DAC Amplifier brings reference-level performance to a reasonable price point. It runs with the big dogs for about half the cost…. The NAD C 399 is by far the best integrated amplifier I’ve heard at this price point…. With NAD’s usual efficient design, the C 399 is a great match for just about any speakers you care to use. Big towers, detailed bookshelves, electrostats; I doubt there is anything this amp can’t drive.”
—Chris Eberle, Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

“The C 399 delivers great performance, impressive features and flexibility, and high value in a modest, yet handsome package…. As is often stated, audio product design represents a series of compromises. With NAD’s C 399 integrated streaming amp, the company has arguably made smart choices. Its compromises, corporeal and aesthetic in nature, relate to things like its chassis, front-panel display, and remote control. Those seeking audio jewelry will look elsewhere. But for those interested in sound quality, features, the flexibility of a modular design, and, importantly, value, the C 399 handily delivers.”
—Howard Kneller, Sound & Vision

“[The] addition of room correction—plus the BluOS capabilities unlocked by the MDC2 BluOS-D—transform this into an integrated amp that fits my specific needs perhaps better than any I’ve auditioned in who knows how freaking long…. Add to that a fantastic headphone amplifier (seriously, I couldn’t find a pair of cans in my collection that didn’t sound mind-blowingly good plugged into the C 399), and there’s really next to nothing to grumble about here. NAD has hit it out of the park, in my opinion…. And for everything else the C 399 BluOS-D does well, my favorite thing about it is that it sounds brilliant and is nearly infinitely tweakable to fit my preferences and my listening space.”
—Dennis Burger, SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Network Reviewers’ Choice Component

Flexibility and Convenience

The C 399 chassis has two sets of line-level line inputs, with low-noise buffer amplifiers to prevent sonic degradation. The C 399 has two optical and two coaxial digital inputs, plus an HDMI-eARC port for playing audio from a connected TV, while controlling amplifier output with the TV’s remote control. In addition to two sets of speaker outputs, the C 399 has preamp output jacks and dual subwoofer outputs.

Two-way apt-X HD Bluetooth allows 24-bit streaming from mobile devices, and high-quality output to Bluetooth headphones. Also built-in is a dedicated headphone amplifier with low-output impedance and high-output voltage capability, enabling the C 399 to drive demanding high-impedance studio monitor headphones.

Perfect Power and Stunning Clarity

With technology that has “trickled down” from NAD’s Masters Series, the C 399’s Hybrid Digital nCore amplifier can deliver 150 watts per channel of continuous power, and 250 watts per channel of instantaneous power. The design is renowned for numerous characteristics: wide bandwidth, flat frequency response, clean clipping behavior with instant recovery, high-current capability, and stability into demanding low-impedance speaker loads. Noise and distortion are vanishingly low under all operating conditions. Any instance of minute levels of harmonic distortion are dominated by sonically benign second and third harmonics.

Plus, the Hypex nCore design enables the C 399 to produce neutral, distortion-free sound even at very high listening levels, with exquisite detail, superb portrayal of space, and thrilling dynamics. Also trickled down from the Masters Series is the ESS Sabre 9028 high-resolution DAC, a design noted for near-zero levels of clock jitter, as well as ultra-low distortion and wide dynamic range. This premium DAC enables the C 399 to reproduce all your digital sources with amazing musicality, stunning clarity, and precise soundstaging.

Future Proof, with MDC2 Architecture

In 2007, NAD introduced Modular Design Construction, an innovative architecture for adding new functions to existing components. Many NAD products have rear-panel slots for MDC modules that perform HDMI switching, BluOS multiroom music streaming, Dolby Atmos surround processing, and other functions. The C 399 is the first product to feature NAD’s new MDC2 architecture. By enabling two-way communications between the module and component, MDC2 opens up the future for new upgrades.

Equipped with Wi-Fi and Ethernet, the optional MDC2 BluOS-D module lets you play music from your favorite streaming services through the C 399, using the acclaimed BluOS Controller app for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Like all BluOS-enabled products, the MDC2 BluOS-D has integrated support for dozens of streaming services; it supports Apple AirPlay 2, TIDAL Connect, and Spotify Connect. Two-way communications also enable the MDC2 BluOS-D to stream music from sources connected to the C 399 to BluOS-enabled components in other rooms.

Dirac Live Customization

The Dirac Live function lets you measure your room’s acoustics using a supplied microphone and intuitive app, and then upload correction curves to the MDC2 BluOS-D. By compensating for acoustic anomalies in your listening environment, Dirac Live dramatically improves bass clarity, imaging, and timbral accuracy. Thanks to its two-way architecture, the MDC2 BluOS-D performs room correction for all sources connected to your C 399. The bottom line? The C 399 is an integrated amp that you’ll cherish for years to come.