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Older news - March 2001

Fresh pictures of our products are in. I think they look brilliant. Here they are:

Last month, I published a copy of a newsletter I sent to my congressmen regarding Napster. My view was that Napster has developed technology that goes beyond pirating MP3. I believe that while pirating music is something I do not support, I believed the music industry was trying to shut down a technology and service that has great potential beyond pirating. I also believe that the music industry has created much of the problem with inflated music costs, lack of support for newer technologies (DVD, DVDA and SACD). I also believe that the music industry has to adapt to the fact that file sharing is possible and work out a reasonable fee for individuals to share files.

Every letter I got was polite. Not everyone agreed with my position. Most of the people who disagreed were at one time musicians. These former musicians believed that what Napster allows is an evil that has to be stopped. I realize that people feel very strongly about this but my opinion is that Napster is a technology that has many applications and the company that developed this technology should be given a chance to evolve into something that the record companies can work with.

There are two audio sites that I visit that have lively debates on audio. I strongly encourage you to visit www.audioreview.com and www.audioasylum.com. Please remember, most of what you read on these sites are strong and biased opinions but the discussions are often lively. Because I have my own website, I am free to put my opinions here. This month, I will start out by explaining some of my opinions.

The role of audio equipment is to try to recreate a recorded event as faithfully as possible. To do this, the signal coming from the source, passing through the preamp and to the amplifier should not be altered in any way. Any alteration of this signal is distortion. There are many places where the signal can be altered. It can happen at the cable, connectors, volume control and in the electronics.

I surrendered the CD/LP war long ago. I enjoy using CDs much more than I did my manual turntable. I believe that high quality CD players--such as nOrh's CD 1 can sound very natural and that most of the opinions against CDs were formed 15 to 20 years ago based on the sound of the first CD players. Much of the opinions today are formed based on lower priced CD players.

I believe that if you plan to buy a low-priced CD player, you should simply get a DVD player. I believe you should buy only an inexpensive CD player, unless you are buying a unit to play DVDA or SACD disks. Cheap DVD players and cheap CD players sound pretty much the same. The problem is that the most expensive DVD players don't sound as good as the best CD players for playing CDs. I am not referring to the ultra expensive SACD units that are designed as high-end audio products.

SACD, DVDA and DVD each have the same potential to create the same level of sound. The differences in the format have more to do with protecting the material than the superiority of one format over another. I personally had wished the DVD would win out. There are millions of players. The audio on the DVD disks I have is simply astonishing.

SACD would have been my second choice because it uses dual layers and it is possible to put a CD version and SACD version on the same disk. This protects backward compatibility. Had Sony released its entire catalog in this format and priced it the same as CDs, I think it would have been a clear winner. Both DVDA and SACD disk are priced higher than standard CDs.

I am still buying CDs and DVDs. When music titles come out that will play on my existing DVD player, I continue to buy them.

I am often asked about passive preamps vs. active preamps. I believe that if passive preamps were less expensive, then this would be a real reason to use passive preamps. If they have excellent volume controls and switches, I believe you could say that they are the purest way to go. However, so many passive units use cheap switches and cheap volume controls. They are also over priced. Passive preamps are a viable option to active preamps. The only limitation to this is that some devices don't output the standard two volts required to drive an amplifier to its maximum output. A one volt source might only drive an amplifier sixty percent of its potential. It this is enough, then a passive preamp will work fine.

I do not believe that a passive preamp is superior because it is passive. I believe less signal loss occurs in the electronic components as does in the switch and volume control. I believe that one reason why the ACA preamp from nOrh is getting such great reviews is that it uses a very expensive volume control from DACT and does all of its switching with vacuum sealed, gold plated relays.

Amplifiers are not as difficult to design or build as many manufacturers pretend. Most of the circuits used in amplifiers are pretty standard. What makes one amplifier sound different is that there are often several shortcuts taken building amplifiers. These include but are not limited to:

1. insufficient transformers
2. single power supply for dual channels
3. insufficient power supplies
4. components too far from one another
5. inappropriate concern for EI fields
6. cheap components
7. poor build quality

If a company builds an amplifier and follows the rules, the amplifier should sound very good. The cost to build such an amplifier is not all that expensive. We are often asked how we can sell our products so much less than everyone else and still have reviewers and customers claim that nOrh products sound as good as some of the much more expensive products. I believe that the real question should be why does everyone else charge so much?

There are many beliefs in the audiophile world that we simply don't buy into. When I argue these things, it seems to offend a lot of people. Many of my opinions are formed by talking to engineers who work in the medical industry building life support systems. I believe that because these engineers are dealing with equipment that concerns life-and-death, their opinions are based on solid engineering and not some of the myths that circulate around the audiophile community.

We are told by audiophiles that the human ear is the most sensitive tool for evaluating audio performance. I believe that this is not true. I believe that the ear/brain combination is easily fooled and that careful testing can more easily show problems with equipment. Conventional testing used by manufacturers simply to put something in their marketing brochures isn't enough. Testing to find out how the equipment will operate in real situations with real music is the best way to weed out problems in audio equipment.

The weakest link in the audio reproduction chain is the loudspeaker. Loudspeakers create far more distortions than any part of the system. While each part of the system has to preserve the signal, the loudspeaker will color the system's sound more than any other component.

nOrh sells loudspeakers to people with tube amplifiers, receivers, integrated amplifiers, passive preamps, active preamps, LPs and CDs. Despite the differences in these systems, our customers are always happy with the performance of their systems.

I believe the biggest mistake I see people making is thinking a subwoofer has to be part of an audio system. They budget the subwoofer into the price and then lower the amount of money they have to spend for the rest of the components. I believe that a subwoofer should not be part of the initial purchase unless the goal is to save space. The consumer should buy the best left and right loudspeaker's their budget will allow and only add a subwoofer if they are not satisfied with the bass response after the loudspeakers break in.

Ceramics

I am sure you have noticed there are lots of pictures of ceramic loudspeakers this month. We now have 20 molds and we can make hundreds of ceramics loudspeakers per month. The reason why we have held off shipping the ceramics is that we want the ceramic 4.0s to be very special.

Last month, the photos I took of the blue and red ceramics came under attack. Some people thought we were doctoring the picture up. I have taken new pictures to show everyone that they are real. We have shipped out dozens of ceramic speakers last month and we will continue to ship more this month. The customer reactions have been very positive. One customer said they were a work of art. The comments on the sound have have also been outstanding. One customer said that he could detect no vibrations coming from the cabinet.

We also have green, black, white, light blue, and dark blue. Other colors will be available later. We have designed the grills so you can change the cloth.

nOrh 3.0

The nOrh 3.0s are going to ship this month. We have dozens of pairs going out soon. The price is $150.00 USD per pair. The sound is much better than what you get from most satellite speakers. Every nOrh 3.0 is magnetically shielded. They are available in walnut and rosewood finish.

Prism

The 5.2s have been getting great reviews. Customers have nothing but praise for the looks and say they look as if they are carved from a single block of wood.

This month, we have completed the 6.9s and these are going out now. The 6.6s will follow in one or two weeks from the first of March and the 6.1s will go out at the same time. There has been a long wait for these loudspeakers. However, these loudspeakers sound better than anything I have heard in their price range and they are also among the most beautiful loudspeakers I have seen.

Prism 6.9 in different colors (incl. Black)

The 4.1s are already shipping. The 4.1 has become very popular because it is a very flexible speaker. It can be placed on the floor, on top of a TV, on a table or hung upside down. The 4.1 comes with small feet that allow it to be angled so the tweeter and woofer point to the listener.

Prism 4.1 Rosewood (Enlarge)
(Flat as it would be on a shorter surface or on the floor)

Marble

We now have six factories producing solid marble. Customers are getting their marbles faster than ever. We still offer both white and black marble. Here is a photo of a white marble 9.0 shown with the grill off.

White Marble 9.0 on matching marble stand, shown without grill.

Future

We got our first samples of synthetic marble cabinets this month. I am very pleased. I initially thought it was real. The look is very close to the real thing, We should have photos of the finished synthetic marble speaker next month. We plan to offer the synthetic marble for a drum version of the 6.9. This version will go down to -3dB at 38 Hz.

Final words

One of the main arguments that I see on the Internet is that customers should not buy anything without hearing it first. I really do understand this advise. I can honestly say, I have never followed that advise. I have purchased many loudspeaker over the years. However, I learned that there are people who knew more than I did and were a better judge of sound quality than I was. I believe that I now know what to listen for and that I am a person that can be trusted. The nOrh 9.0s are being called the world's best two-way loudspeaker. I can honestly say I have never heard a better two way speaker.

The nOrh 9.0 is an expensive loudspeaker. At $3,000.00 it is far more expensive than anything I ever thought I would build. Nonetheless, it is a loudspeaker that is very easy to justify simply based on its cost to manufacture. The 9.0 uses the most expensive components from Scanspeak--the Revelators. In the US, these drivers go for about $800 to $1000 per set. The cabinet is made from real marble that is hand ground and polished. It takes one day to make one cabinet. The cabinet is probably the most expensive cabinet built for a two-way loudspeaker. The crossover components are all expensive. We use solid silver wire for the internal wiring. We braid six pieces of solid silver wire (99%) to make our own wire. This wire costs us about $100 per speaker. Nobody uses any more expensive wire in their loudspeakers. The baffle is covered in high quality Napa leather and the grill is made from laser cut powder coated steel. The feet are made from carved stainless steel and the grill is made from real silk thread.

I have asked our customers to check out what it would cost to build just the cabinet in the United States. I would be interested to know how much value the cabinet is. I wonder what it would cost just to buy a block of marble the size of the nOrh 9.0. If anyone knows, I will publish this on the website.

We are going to start e-mailing a newsletter soon. We would like to ask you to subscribe to our list.

"News from Norh" provides a monthly e-mail update on new audio product offerings and recordings from Norh.

You can subscribe to this by sending a blank email to <norhnews-subscribe@topica.com>. To read this list on the web, visit the following url: http://www.topica.com/lists/norhnews

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Sincerely,

Michael C. Barnes
President
nOrh Loudspeaker Company, Ltd

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