The Sound

Please note that this section doesn't include the latest product line, such as the Prisms, nOrh 3.0, Subwoofers, electronics, etc. We recommend you check out the product's separate section.

By now, you probably know that I can write volumes about audio. I am sure many of you will scan over this page. The most important message that I want the reader to consider is that there is no magic in audio. Many vendors claim amazing new discoveries. These discoveries are like the many names that toothpaste companies use for the exact same ingredient. They are marketing terms that have no engineering basis.

I am an audio enthusiast that simply decided to build my own loudspeakers and got carried away. Despite the fact that I have invested a substantial amount of money in this project, I still haven't spent as much as many audiophiles would spend on their systems. I want to share with the world my hobby. I want more people to enjoy audio the way it should be heard for as little money as possible.

No matter what you read in other companies literature, it all boils down to quality of components and design execution. I can not claim any credit for the components I buy. I can only claim credit for the cabinet. I conceived the inverted horn idea and I will even admit that was not a stroke of genius but rather an observation. The nOrh loudspeakers sound the way they do because we integrate the highest quality components into a cabinet that has the best acoustic properties. I do not believe any loudspeaker company can do more than that.

What makes nOrh Loudspeaker different than other companies is that I don't need to make a profit. I created this company to test my idea and to put people to work. As long as the bills are paid and my employees are taken care of, I don't need to take anything out of the company. I have never taken any money from the company and I have no plans to do so. I will invest any profits in researching new products and putting more people to work.

The nOrh 7.0 was so successful that I used the money to research the nOrh 4.0 and to design amplifiers. We hope that soon we will be doing for amplifiers what we have done for loudspeakers--drive the quality up and drive the prices down. Le Amp will probably fulfill that objective.

Quantifying how something sounds is probably an impossible task. First of all, many of the things that might cause someone to have a preference for one type of speaker over another is simply that one speaker sounds different. The way speakers are placed, the connecting cables and the amplifier will all cause a loudspeaker to sound different. The question becomes when does that different become an improvement.

I have spent years listening to big amplifiers and big speakers. I do not like the sound of speakers that don't have the ability to capture realistic levels. The reason why I like the nOrh loudspeakers so much (other than I designed them) is they don't take up as much space as any of the loudspeakers I like, yet they sound the way I like loudspeakers to sound.

We know why these loudspeakers sound so very good. You can read the reviews from customers and magazines that agree with me that these are loudspeakers are special. There are reasons why these loudspeakers sound better. We use better drivers than most other companies. We use better wire than most companies. We use better connectors than most other companies. We tune the cabinets more carefully than most other companies. We build better crossovers than most companies. However, if we did all this and still used a box for a cabinet, we would be no better than dozens of other companies manufacturing loudspeakers.

The real reason why these loudspeakers are special is because of the shape. The shape of this loudspeaker impacts the sound dramatically.

If you read this entire web site, you will understand how there are many factors that ultimately determine the quality of the sound your brain receives. Remember that all sound information is input into your ears and processed by your brain. Any distortion in the recording or playback of sound will destroy the illusion of realistic sound.

The electronics that reproduce music continue to improve. CD players today are remarkable. DVDs are one of the best values in electronics. The new minidisks will produce much better recordings than the best cassette recorder. There are many reasonably priced high quality amplifiers available today. Unfortunately, loudspeakers are either becoming more expensive or the quality is getting worse.

The reason is that components that comprise a loudspeaker (wood, labor, and drivers) are becoming more expensive. Reducing costs mean that the drivers come from China or Taiwan. The crossover uses cheap electronic parts and the cabinets are plastic covered chip board. All of these have a negative impact on the sound. Together, they produce unsatisfactory results.

Our cabinet is the result of care, observation, calculation and experimentation. The shape acts as a reversed horn (inverted horn). The undesired byproducts (exhaust) created by the drivers are reduced by being forced to go backwards through a horn. It is like looking in the wrong end of a telescope. The idea is simple but it works.

The sound is lifelike, natural and more realistic than what you will hear from a box cabinet. Most of our customers have high expectations. However, we continue to surprise our customers with just how good these loudspeakers sound. They sound better than any box can sound.

Too many loudspeakers offer substandard sound. nOrh Loudspeakers only exists because we believe we can and do build a better sounding loudspeakers. Some highly regarded loudspeakers offer good imaging and good midrange but offer virtually no bass. Many loudspeakers can barely fill a room with sound before they start distorting. Some loudspeakers are little more than oversized boxes with small or inexpensive drivers installed. These loudspeakers are often boomy and sound hollow.

No loudspeaker is perfect. Loudspeakers creates a window to the performance. The better the loudspeaker, the better view the listener has through that window. Audiophiles use the term "high-end" to describe speakers achieve the highest level of audio excellence. Most loudspeakers are designed for other purposes than to create "high-end" sound. Many loudspeakers are designed to meet a particular price point not a particular performance criteria.

nOrh Loudspeaker's goal was to build a highly affordable "high-end" loudspeaker. If nOrh Loudspeaker simply put the same drivers and crossovers in a rectangle cabinet, we would have achieved our goal of building a highly affordable "high-end" loudspeaker. The nOrh Loudspeaker achieves a higher degree of resolution because we do not use a standard rectangle cabinet.

When we built the first prototypes for the nOrh Loudspeaker we wanted to test to see if our cabinet really did benefit the sound.. The way we tested this was we went out and bought an imported loudspeaker from a highly regarded speaker engineer. The loudspeaker was a simple design but it used very high quality components.

We removed the crossover, woofer and tweeter from one of the drivers and then mounted them into a "nOrh Loudspeaker" cabinet to see if simply using our cabinet would improve the sound.

We then had a panel of 10 people listen to the same music playing through the well known loudspeaker and then through ours. We did not tell the users which speaker was which nor did we tell the evaluators what we were trying to prove. We simply let them listen.

All 10 people selected the nOrh Loudspeaker. In this case, the only thing that impacted the sound was the cabinet. This means that our theory that the shape of our cabinet would make our speaker sound better than traditional designs is correct. The only challenge for us was to determine if we wanted to use this advantage to allow us to use cheaper drivers and networks or did we want to go for the best systems we could build by only using the highest quality components.

We decided to only use high quality components and go for the best sound possible. Realizing that there is a limit to how much money people can spend, we decided that we would give users a range of options. The quality of the cabinet (acoustically) and the quality of the crossover are the same in all three designs. The only difference is the quality (cost) of the drivers. We do not manufacture a "low-end" product. Every speaker we build is designed to compete against any two-way system.

The unique design o the nOrh Loudspeaker allows the loudspeaker to play loud and complex music in a relaxed way. Because the woofer never has to deal with unwanted energy trapped in a box, the loudspeaker can deliver with authority without sounding strained. The woofer can react quickly. This allows it to produce bass that never sounds constrained yet never loose.

While the nOrh Loudspeakers are all built with the same level of quality and craftsmanship, there are some differences as follows:

We spent more time engineering the nOrh 4.0 than any speaker we have ever designed. We tested a variety of drivers before we found the combination that satisfied us the most. The nOrh 4.0 is a small speaker--about six liters. The tweeters are mounted outside the cabinet. This reduces possible baffle reflections and helps us time-align the loudspeaker.

We used every trick in the book to squeeze as much performance out of the nOrh 4.0 as we could. The result is a loudspeaker that sounds every bit like a nOrh. It plays very loud. It images very well. The midrange is absolutely dead-on. Most loudspeakers this size sound squeezed and compressed. Not so for the nOrh 4.0. The nOrh 4.0 obviously doesn't produce deep bass. However, the bass it does produce is quick and articulate. (Picture on Left: Pair of nOrh 4.0 with a 12" vase)

Most small speakers use 3 and 4 1/2 inch woofers. These are less expensive but can't produce bass below 125 Hz. We use a 5 inch woofer. The cabinet is carefully designed and tuned to gently roll off about 70 Hz.

The nOrh 4.0 is ideal for center channel, rear channel, small rooms and portable systems. Most people that hear the nOrh 4.0 want to know what other speakers are playing. They can not believe that such sound can come from such a small package.

The nOrh 5.1 is the follow-on to our very successful nOrh 5.0. The nOrh 5.0 was a sell out. We decided to re-engineer the speaker to try to find ways to achieve better value. The 5.1 actually outperforms the the nOrh 5.0 in some areas-- power handling, dynamic range, and bass response. Nonetheless, we have found ways to reduce costs without impacting the cosmetics or quality of the product.

The nOrh 5.1 and nOrh 4.0 Loudspeakers use a 5 1/2 inch from Vifa, model TC14WG40-09. . This woofer is used by many mini-monitors such as the Rogers LS/1A. The woofer has a very nice roll-off at about 50 Hz. The woofer can handle 110 watts, which allows the nOrh 5.1 and nOrh 4.0 to play very loud for small speakers.

Mini-monitors are speakers used by remote radio broadcasts or by recording studios. They do not produce deep bass but they allow the listener to listen to the details of musical instruments and the details of human voice.

One of the problems with many mini-monitors is that while they sound very good, they often are very inefficient, have no bass, and can not play very loud. This is because they are generally built using very small cabinets--many of them sealed.

The nOrh 5.1 Loudspeaker beats most mini monitors in that it sounds more open, produces bass, and much more lively than most mini monitors. The nOrh 5 Loudspeaker can play loud. You can use the nOrh Loudspeaker for a rear or center channel. It handles dynamics much better than a mini-monitor can.

The nOrh 5.1 Loudspeaker produces bass below 50 Hz--it's -10 dB point is 45 Hz. This is what you might expect from other loudspeakers using 6.5 inch woofers. The nOrh Loudspeaker sells for about half the price of mini-monitors. Most mini-monitors use 1/2 inch thick vinyl covered boxes. Remember, we are using 1 inch thick solid carved wood. The nOrh Loudspeaker simply sounds better.

The 5.1 gets a new tweeter. The tweeter uses a neodymium magnet and very compact construction. We designed a very complex network to achieve the best performance possible.

The nOrh 5.1 can produce realistic sound levels in a small room. The nOrh 5.1 is very musical. It can fill a small to medium sized room with music using a modest amplifier. Despite its modest price, the nOrh 5.1 images well and sounds very musical. The nOrh 5.1 has very little to fault for a speaker in its price range.

Every day, I get e-mail praising the nOrh 7.0. People tell me that they have never heard anything so clear, transparent or dynamic. While I would like to take the credit, the credit goes to SCANSPEAK. The quality of our workmanship, wiring, and crossovers is the same from one speaker to another. The only real difference is the quality of the drivers. Most speaker designers will tell you that they are brilliant. I can't take any credit for how the nOrh 7.0 sounds (outside of the original inverted horn concept). The credit goes to SCANSPEAK. These speaker are great because SCANSPEAK is great. It is amazing that building one of the best loudspeakers in the world is as simple as selecting the best components in the world and properly integrating them into a cabinet that has the best acoustic properties in the world. I isn't any more difficult than that.

What the nOrh 7.0 shows me is how few companies are willing to use such expensive drivers. On the other hand, how many manufacturers would build a speaker from solid wood, use silver wiring and use the most expensive capacitors around? Probably not many. We do everything we know how to do to make the nOrh 7.0 one of the best sounding two-way loudspeakers in the world.

Since we started building these loudspeakers, we learned that some manufacturers have been using drivers that look like SCANSPEAK drivers but they are actually cosmetic copies. In one case, a very expensive loudspeaker uses a Vifa driver that was specially ordered to look like a SCANSPEAK. The reason is obvious. SCANSPEAK drivers are very expensive. They cost four and five times what other drivers cost.

Are SCANSPEAK drivers worth their extra price? That depends on how many times they are marked up by the time the consumer gets them. We believe we are the world's least expensive loudspeaker using these drivers. We are aware of one other speaker that uses these drivers that cost $1,900 per pair. We believe we are using better wire, connectors, cabinets and crossover components than our competition.

Some of our customers have asked us about using even more expensive SCANSPEAK drivers in the nOrh 7.0. If you are interested, please feel free to write us.

How does the nOrh 7.0 sound. Let me qualify it by saying there is no perfect loudspeaker. All loudspeakers have some faults. As a speaker designer, I try to limit the faults and put as many good qualities as I possibly can into the loudspeaker. I can not take any credit for the quality of SCANSPEAK. I can take credit for the craftsmanship and quality of our crossover and cabinet. However, the part of the system that actually does the work is the driver itself. If anyone ever doubted the difference a driver can make, they need only listen to the quality of sound that comes from these fantastic SCANSPEAK components.

The SCANSPEAK drivers resolve detail unlike any speaker I have ever heard. When a bass violin is plucked, you hear the difference from the moment the string is released until the sound of the strings stop resonating. You hear singers take breaths--even while the band is playing loud. Every instrument is detailed as each instrument had its own dedicated speaker. I believe this is the most convincing recreation of a live event that I have ever heard. If it were not for the fact that these astonishingly good drivers were so expensive, I would simply advise everyone to buy this speaker.

While the SCANSPEAK drivers are expensive, I still don't understand how some companies can charge as much as they do for their loudspeakers. I have spared no expense. I have carved these speakers from solid wood. My cabinet is 1 inch thick. We spend four hours sanding each cabinet. We use high quality over specified components to build our crossover. We wire all the components by hand using silver wire and silver solder. We use over 11 meters of imported German silver wire to make all our connections. Even after shipping these loudspeakers by air, I can still sell these loudspeakers for so less. Of course, I save money by using labor here in Thailand and I don't spend much money on advertising. Yet, I fail to see why most loudspeakers are so damn expensive.

We are getting reviews that tell us that no loudspeaker in the world is better than the nOrh 7.0 at this price. I am gratified by these reviews but it doesn't make sense to me why my competitors don't build better speakers or why don't they charge less. It is becoming simply too easy to sell nOrh 7.0s when my competitors refuse to build better product or they won't reduce the prices of their current products. The nOrh 7.0 combined with our powered subwoofer is a package that produces world class sound. I don't think there are many speakers that can beat this combination yet there are many loudspeakers that cost more than the $3,000 we charge for the combination. In fact, most of our competitors would charge more than $3,000 for SCANSPEAK drivers in a standard box made from MDF and covered with a thin layer of veneer. I don't get it.

I have been told I don't charge enough. I am told that if I charge too little, people will not believe what I say about my loudspeakers. This is why I tell everyone what model drivers we use. You can look at the components I choose and evaluate for yourself if the price is reasonable.

I might never make a lot of money making loudspeakers. I really don't care. I don't take a salary from this activity. I am simply delighted that people are buying and enjoying a loudspeaker that I created. I am delighted to provide employment here in Thailand during a difficult economic situation. I enjoy the praise I personal receive for having created the nOrh loudspeaker. I guess what I am saying is I am having fun and I don't want to spoil it.

By the way, here is a picture of our crossover. It is handwired using silver wire. We have mounted the coils so that one coil's flux is up and the other is down. This prevents the coils from having crosstalk. Not many companies worry about such little details.

We are now using MultiCap capacitors. These are very expensive capacitors--perhaps the best there is. It is one more thing we are willing to do to make the nOrh 7.0 the best value in the world.

The SCANSPEAK tweeter crosses over at 2000 Hz. This allows us to offload much of the work off of the woofer. The woofer is a paper woofer coated with Poly Carbon fiber. This same woofer is used by Wilson Audio, ProArc and Sonus Faber in some of the world's more expensive loudspeakers. It produces very articulate bass.

The marble version of the 7.0 improves the sound by 30%. The 9700 Scanspeak driver improves the detail and imaging. The Scanspeak 9700 version of the nOrh 7.0--particularly in marble, easily beats many loudspeakers in the $5,000 to $7,000 range. There is no way that putting these same drivers in an MDF box can sound as good.

I believe that the nOrh 7.0 represents the absolute bargains in "high-end" audio. It uses some of the finest components in the world yet the total package is priced in the range of bargain system.

The nOrh 9.0 currently represents the "state-of-the-art" for a 2-way loudspeakers. The nOrh 9.0 uses the finest loudspeakers from Scanspeak. The result is the most detailed 2 way loudspeaker I have ever heard. The biggest challenge producing a 2-way loudspeaker is to cover the entire audio spectrum using only two drivers. 2-way loudspeakers are generally lauded for their ability to image, clarity and detail. What they often lack is dynamics and deep bass. All of our loudspeakers offer great dynamics. All of our loudspeakers offer great imaging and fantastic detail. Even our modest nOrh 4.0 has been compared to some of the most expensive loudspeakers in the world for their ability to recreate accurate recreations of the live music experience.

Each model up the line offers better resolution, more detail and additional clarity. The 6.5 and 7.0 offer very good bass performance but both of these offer little bass below 38 Hz.

The 9.0 expands on our sound. It offers better performance in every area and adds the last bit of bass required to cover the entire music range.

Prior to CDs, most music sources could not actually support 20 to 20,000 Hz. Most music was limited to about 40 Hz. Few LPs offered an bass below this because the distance between the tracks did not allow this to happen. Most tapes would not support much bass below 30 Hz.

The nOrh 9.0 offers usable output to 28 hz! This is astonishing for a two-way loudspeaker. The - 3dB point is 35 Hz. For most applications, the nOrh 9.0 offers the performance of the most expensive loudspeakers made. In fact, the Revelator tweeter is used in some of the world's most expensive loudspeakers, including the Sonus Faber Amati.

The nOrh 9.0 and two Multiamps will create sound that is simply not available from any other company anywhere near this price. Every customer who has bought the 9.0 and Multiamps say they have yet to hear better.

The marble 9.0 improves the performance of the 9.0 by 30%! The nOrh 9.0 is not inexpensive but it is the least expensive loudspeaker using this quality of drivers available from anywhere. No box loudspeaker can make these drivers sound better than our marble cabinet.