Soft Clipping - NAD 916 Owner's Manual

the loudspeakers with heavy-duty (16-gauge or thick-
er) stranded wire.
Connections may be made in either of two ways.
[See Figure 1.]
(1) Strip off a half-inch (1 cm) of insulation from
each speaker wire. In each conductor, twist the thin
strands of wire together. Unscrew the knob, insert
the bare wire into the opening at the base of the bind-
ing post, and tighten the knob until it grasps the wire
securely. Check to be sure that no loose strand of
wire is touching the chassis or an adjacent terminal.
Or, (2) Install banana plugs on your speaker
wires, and plug them into the end of each binding
post. The terminals are separated by 3/4 inch
(19mm), so they will accept dual-banana plugs.
The Model 916 contains three separate stereo
amplifiers - six channels in all. To use each pair as a
conventional stereo amplifier, connect the wires from
the left-channel speaker to the CH 1 + and CH 1 - ter-
minals (or to the corresponding terminals on channels
3 and 5) and the wires from the right-channel speaker
to the CH 2 + and CH 2 - terminals (or to the corre-
sponding terminals on channels 4 and 6).
NOTE - Stereo speakers must operate in phase
with each other in order to produce a focused stereo
image and to reinforce rather than cancel each
other's output at low frequencies. When connecting
speakers, take care that the red (positive) terminal on
each loudspeaker is connected to the corresponding
red (positive) terminal on the amplifier.
6. BRIDGING
Each pair of amplifiers within the Model 916 can be
"bridged" to form a single amplifier of about three
times the power per channel. If you currently need
fewer than six channels of amplification, use this fea-
ture to increase the available amplifier power. For
example, bridging two of the 916's pairs of amplifiers
will yield two mono amplifiers of 90W apiece for the
main channels and one stereo amplifier of 30W per
channel for a remote set of speakers. For surround
systems, connect two channels to the front speakers,
one to the center channel, one to the surrounds, and
use a bridged pair to drive the subwoofer.
To convert to bridged operation:
(1) Select the two channels to be bridged. In this
example we will use channels 3 and 4. Other pairs of
channels are bridged in the same fashion.
(2) Switch the POWER off.
(3) Disconnect any input and output cables from
channels 3 and 4.
(4) Set the bridging switch to ON.
(5) Select the cable from the speaker that is to be
driven by the bridged section of the 916. Connect its
"positive" conductor to the CH 3 + terminal and its
"negative" conductor to the CH 4 + terminal (i.e. to
the two red terminals). DO NOT connect any wires to
the black terminals (CH 3 - and CH 4 -).
CAUTION: In the bridged mode, wires must be
connected directly from the amplifier to the speakers,
not to a speaker switch, a headphone adapter, or any
other device that shares a common ground between
channels.
(6) Connect the signal lead from the source chosen
to be amplified by the bridging amplifier to the input
socket of the CH3 amplifier
(7) Turn the POWER on.
NOTE - If you are using two pairs of speakers on
one channel, or if you are in the bridged mode, we
recommend that the speakers have a nominal imped-
ance of 8 or more.

7. SOFT CLIPPING

When an amplifier is driven beyond its specified
power output it normally produces "hard clipping" of
the signal with harsh distortion and power-supply
buzz as the output transistors saturate. The NAD
SOFT CLIPPING circuit gently limits the output wave-
form and minimizes audible distortion when the
amplifier is overdriven. We recommend that it be
switched ON when playing music at levels that might
exceed the amplifier's power capacity.
FRONT PANEL
1. POWER
Press this button to switch the amplifier on or off. A
green LED above the power button illuminates when
the power is on.
GB
NAD
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