Reeling in the years…

I am posting this for my own future reference and hopefully to help anyone else out there who encounters this problem. If you have any questions about the setup, feel free to email me at terry at rudys dot net.

It was hard to find any information at all about this amp. Its a 2 x 50 watt per channel amp from the mid 80s, but its possible to bridge it, so that you can have one 2150 for your left channel and another 2150 for your right channel and see 105wpc in that configuration. Sadly, there are no manuals for this particular amp on the ‘net. I gave in and called NAD tech support. The TS guy didn’t believe me at first that I even had this amp as he had no documentation on it either. Eventually he did some sleuth work and found one in the lab (along with a manual for it). He offered to fax it to me, but I declined (in hindsight I probably should have had it faxed to me as it would be useful to know some other information about it) as I just wanted to know how to bridge it.

Without further ado, here’s how its done:
1) Turn off your NAD amp(s)
2) Flick the switch on the back to set it to bridge mode. You may have to unscrew a connector which forces it into non-bridge mode.
3) Plug the RCA cable input into the RIGHT input (whether you are using this amp for your left or right channel - BOTH have to be using the RIGHT input on the respective amp.
4) Set the positive lead for the respective speaker to the right POS (red) speaker A terminal.
5) Set the negative lead for the respective speaker to the left POS (red) speaker A terminal. Yes, I said RED for positive and negative.
6) Make sure the speaker A button is pressed on the front panel or you get no sound.
7) enjoy.

Here’s a pic of the connections:

And here’s a pic of the two bad boys, dishing out classic warm NAD sound:

(yeah one of them has a dead power light)

Initial Listening Impressions
Its not any louder and the highs and mids are not much different. There is definitely a fuller sound the lower you go and now my MMG’s have BASS (well as much bass as an MMG can have). It really opened up the depth of the music by adding the extra power.

If you are curious, here is some more info on my stereo: http://www.bokonon.net/stereo/

Bamboo shoots are coming up again! A couple pictures….

This one is from a Black Bamboo in the front yard that I planted about 6 months back. These are its first shoots so they are rather small. But its better than nothing.

This is another black bamboo that is on its 3rd growing season. Located in the back yard its done really well. The thicker shoots you see in the background are last years. With bamboo, each year produces thicker and thicker shoots. You can see the three new ones poking up here in the foreground are looking to be larger than last years. They come out a yellowish color and then after a year they turn the beautiful black color. I need to do some trimming of the small shoots as well as that weed growing between the shoots. If the weather is warm, the shoots can grow up to 6 inches A DAY.

I have a few other bamboo varieties in the yard (including a few that are also growing) but the black bamboo are my favorites and get top billing in the news updates.

To overcome my geekness, I worked on a mini office inside a closet today. Cut some wood for the desk, put the file cabinets underneath, installed some shelves above. Nothing too tricky, and a nice hidden out of the way desk area. Paint is still drying, then the stuff on the floor moves inside.