It appears out July Newletter never made it up on the web. Our webmaster was traveling and I don't have the passwords for our website so it has been a while for our website to be updated.  nOrh has been working very hard to create a new website that will be available in a few months. We are also slowly introducing new and exciting products.  One of these products is the new marble 3.0.  I was astonished when I heard them for the first time. They are magnificent sounding.  I have seen a lot of small speakers but most small speakers sound, well, small.  The new M3s sound large. They fill up a room and it is nearly impossible to hear where the sound is coming from.

A pair of M3s and a SE9 will give you a combination that is truly elegant and truly high-end. While most systems in this price range are made of plastic and chip board, nOrh is providing glass and marble.

Many people who would love to listen to music, simply don't know how to get started or how to get back into it.  They don't want to dedicate a room to hardware and they don't want to spend a fortune.  They want  something that looks good and is easy to use.

The SE 9 and a pair of M3s costs just under  $995.00 shipped.  The sound is amazing. The system takes up very little space. The combination of glass and marble is elegant.  

The M3 loudspeakers are custom creations of art carved from solid stone.  Like every marble speaker we have hand crafted before, the M3 establishes a standard of performance unmatched by any other speaker of any other material in its price range.

I was honestly blown away with the performance of these speakers. For years, I have been a fan of the nOrh 3.0s. I have heard them in Teak and I have heard them in wood.  The sound has never failed to amaze me just how transparent and open the 3.0s are.  However, the M3s sound like a whole new speaker.  I can honestly say that for anyone who listens to their music at modest or moderate levels, the M3s will create a level of performance unmatched by anything in the $500.00 price range.

The SE 9 is the ideal amplifier to drive these M3s. The SE 9 is a simple to use single ended integrated amplifier that provides one of the lowest cost examples of the sonic benefits of tubes combined with the purity of full Class A operation.  

I believe the general trend has been that high quality sound is getting to be more expensive and that modestly priced sound is getting worse. This trend is accelerating and there are many reasons for it. While most people assume that technology always gets less expensive, none of these forces really apply to audio. The value of the US dollar is going down. Oil prices are going up. Any product that uses labor outside of China is seeing their costs increase.

Today, much of the audio products are simply relabeled Chinese manufactured products. This is not to say that Chinese products are bad. I have been to China and there is a very active audiophile community there and some of the products made in China are actually quite good. However, these are not the products that you are seeing sold in large electronics stores in the US.  

I remember that about 25 years ago, I saw an article about a Carver amplifier that was going to sell for under $500.00 that had 200 watts per channel.  After that, Adcom, released a cube that was also priced in this range.  I bought the Adcom. If I remember correctly, the Adcom amplifier had 8 Motorola output devices per side. I don't remember much about the transformer but I remember it had a fan too keep the system cool.  The sound was acceptable but the amplifier had a bad habit of blowing out speakers.  Later, Adcom refined their designs. The sound improved greatly but the amplifier still didn't have the magical sound of the best electronics.

After the Adcom amplifiers, I was off chasing the amplifiers that costs thousands of dollars. Today, the market for high quality, low cost amplifiers has virtually disappeared.  NorhTec has released several amplifiers over the years. All of our amplifiers have had a very good reputation for sound quality.  We are now introducing two new stereo amps, the Deux 60 and the Deux 150.  The Deux series are daul mono amplifiers in the same case.  Each channel has its own high current transformer.  The Deux 150 has two 480 VA transformers. This is an unheard of amount of reserve power for a modestly priced amplifier.  

The Deux amplifiers have a very useful but unique feature.  We have added a gain adjustment to the rear of the amplifier. This allows you to adjust the gain to your taste.  This will allow you to match the Deux with virtually any processor or amplifier.  What is really exciting is that you can use this gain adjustment to match the Deux with passive preamps.  The passive preamp will now sound as if it has its own gain as you will be easily able to adjust amplifier so that a passive preamp can push the amplifier to its maximum capacity.

The adjustable gain can be used to adjust the difference between rear and front channels for home theater systems as well.