I received the new speaker yesterday and noticed the extra effort in packaging the speaker. I really appreciate Norh's commitment to service and also think Namphung is wonderful to deal with. The synthetic marble 6.9's I have purchased are more than I had hoped for - stunning sound and looks. I will recommend your products to my friends in the St. Louis audio community and in posts on audiocircle.com....

Thank you Michael and Namphung for offering such a unique product and backing it up with terrific service.  

-Tracy Beckett

I think that a lot of people probably are like me when it comes to music.  Deep down, we love music but there are times when we just don't seem to have the time or the inclination to really try to listen to music.  I remember when I was a teenager, nothing was more important than music.  We either played records or had the radio on no matter what was going on.  I can remember carrying around albums and trading them with my friends.  

I listened to a radio station coming out of Cincinnati, Ohio, WEBN. WEBN had a show on at night called the Jelly Pudding Show. This was a show of eclectic music.  Most of the music was based on blues.  This was not the mainstream music that most of my friends listened to.  This is where Jimmy Hendrix, Traffic, Yes, Emerson Lake and Plamer and other album oriented acts were featured.  Certainly there was a lot of crossover as some of the songs from these albums also become hits but my friends and I always listened to music from albums - not from singles.

My favorite music at the time was Steppenwolf, Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Cream, and The Iron Butterfly.

On Sunday, WEBN played Jazz and Classical.  I never changed stations.  Instead, I actually started liking Jazz and Classical.  I remember my father coming into my room and hearing classical music playing on the radio and asking me when I started listening to it.  I told him I listened to it every Sunday.  

I saved my money and bought a Panasonic stereo. It has a cassette recorder and an FM stereo. It came with two eight inch woofers that were mounted in round balls.  The whole system was made out of plastic.  I was quite proud of my system.  One of my friends in high school, Bev Addisorn, invited me over to her house. At that time, her father was having the first push button phone installed that I had ever seen. This was back in 1970.  I had wondered since I was a kid why phones didn't have push buttons so when I saw that they finally got around to using push buttons, I felt like someone had stolen my idea.  

Bev's father, obviously into high technology, had a Sansui receiver and a pair of  box speakers of some sort. What he had was not like anything I had ever seen.  I will never forget that when Bev Addisorn turned on her father's receiver, I was blown away with the quality of the sound.  I know instantly that my system was no match for her father's system.  

There are times when I hear music that instantly takes me back to the days of my youth.  I can remember people I have long forgotten.  I can recall all the details of events that I haven't though about for twenty and thirty years.

There is music that takes me all the way back to my childhood. This would be music by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Junior. That is the music that played in my house when I was a kid.  There are the songs my grandfather listened to, which was mostly country.  Hank Williams, Your Cheatin Heart or Patsy Kline singing Lonely will bring back memories of my grandfather's saloon. It was on his jukebox that I heard the hits of the 1960s.  I can remember asking for a nickel or a dime to hear a song or two on the jukebox.  I would get coins that were painted with pink nail polish because when the guy who collected the coins from the jukebox came by to take the coins, he gave back the ones that were painted pink.

I think it isn't enough that we just remember our childhood or our teen years.  There is so much more that happens in life than just graduating high school.  For me, there are many newer memories that I would like to make sure that when I am older, I can remember as clearly as when I think back about being in high school. I want to remember back to things that happened while my daughter grew up. My daughter went through many music variations.  As a little girl, she loved oldies.  I don't know why or how she could tell an oldie from a new song but she could.  At four years of age, she wanted to hear songs from the 1950s and 1960s.  

When she was about 10 or so, she listened to the boy bands and teeny bopper songs that her friends listened to. However, before she was 13, she started throwing away CDs and started listening to music with more of an edge.  She called the music punk but having lived through the 1970s, it sounded more like derivative rock and roll than punk.  My daughter danced so she also listened to some jazz and other styles to find music that she could use for dance performances.

As she was growing up and went through high school, the music never stopped.  In her room, the music would play through speakers, in the car, the music played through a CD and everywhere else, she had a portable CD player that she carried with her.  Just three years ago, before she went to college, she was carrying a shoe box full of CDs around to listen to. It is amazing that only three years later, we now have the iPods and she could have fit all that music and more in her pocket.  

I think that it is important that we always find new music to listen to. We should be able to recall all the details of our lives - not just our childhood.  These days, I tend to listen to more jazz than anything else. However, I am also having a great time going through some of the collective commons works on garageband.com.  I believe that the quality of music from these independent artists is often superior to what is played on the radio.  

I think we all owe it to ourselves to keep the music in the background.  I believe that music is like a bookmark that allows us to do a search of our own brain and bring up memories that would otherwise be long forgotten.  

Remember - if music was just for background, we would all live in elevators - Michael C. Barnes

I always try to report on what is going on at the other company - NorhTec. That is the company that pays my bills.  As I have written, my long term goal is to combine the two companies as I believe all home entertainment will eventually be generated and distributed with computers and over networks.  Sales continue to pick up. Here are 800 Microservers boxed up and ready to go out the door. This is one week worth of production.


One of the project I am working on now with NorhTec is the HyperClient. The HyperClient is an ultra small multimedia computer that is small enough to fit in your hand.  The computer will support integrated MPEG-2 decoding and have high quality 20 bit sound and come with an optional integrated CD or DVD. The HyperClient will be the same size as our existing MicroClient.  It will come with 256MB RAM and use the NanoBGA x86 compatible processor from VIA. I would like to build a matching amplifier that would be the same size. It would be possible to use a HyperClient as a music server and MicroClients as clients. I want to also design some small speakers for this system.

Today, NorhTec is working on some advertising projects. We can stream audio and video to up to 35,000 clients from a single server. I would like to see nOrh build the audio systems for these as I know we can do a much better job than the PA style speakers that typically are used for these applications.

SE 9 Integrated Tube Amplifier

Audiophiles have long claimed that tube amps sound smoother and more natural than solid state amps.  The reason is the distortion that tube amps create are even order harmonics.  Solid state amps create odd order harmonics. Even order harmonics are the type of harmonics that occur naturally.  Odd order harmonics do not occur naturally so our ears are far more sensitive to these distortions.

Audiophiles claim that when people listen to odd order harmonics, it causes a sensation they term as listener fatigue.  The SE 9 is a single ended amplifier which is considered by many to be the purest form of sound reproduction possible.  While the nOrh SE 9 is modest in terms of power, the SE 9 generally plays loud enough for most applications and is ideal for hours and hours of listening.

I spend up to 16 hours a day in front of my computer.  During my work, I listen to streaming audio broadcasts and a variety of podcasts.  I also download lots of collective commons songs from GarageBand.com .  I have found a lot of music on GarageBand.com that is much better than what is typically played on radio. Here are some artists to check out:

My daughter tells me that a lot of young people her age are collecting vinyl records.  I am not sure how they are playing them. Most electronics today don't include phono preamps.  The receivers that do have them have very low quality RIAA circuits.  If you still have a record collection, please consider our tube RIAA equalizer (phono preamp).  This unit will allow you to play your turntable through modern equipment that has no equalization. You can also use this between your computer soundcard and turntable so you can archive your vinyl collection, create MP3s or create CDs from your LP collection.

nOrh's tube RIAA equalizer (phono Preamp)

Black Synthetic Marble Speaker on real Marble Stand

I very much enjoy the 6.6s. They are very efficient and have a very smooth and natural sound. When I watch movies, I am often fooled into thinking the sound coming from the speakers is real.

Tuk with nOrh 3.0 Prism

Pictured above is nOrh's very popular nOrh 3.0.  I personally have 7 nOrh 3.0 Prisms.  The Prisms is the easiest to position speakers I have ever seen.  The nOrh 3.0s  is the best sounding and best looking economical speaker available. I use the nOrh 3.0 Prisms with my SE 9 attached to my computer.  I spend more time in my office than I do my living room.

The combination of nOrh 3.0s and the SE 9.0 is one of the best sounding  audio systems possible under $700.00.  If you have any friends who are about to buy a cheap combo system or even a high priced low-end system, you have a responsibility to let them know about the SE 9.0 and nOrh 3.0 combination.


The nOrh 4.0s continue to be one of our best selling speakers.  We offer the 4.0 in both walnut and rosewood.  The nOrh 4.0s are among the best sounding and most beautiful speakers under $500.00 a pair.  They are hand carved from solid wood.  Most speakers in this price range use very cheap Asian drivers, poorly designed crossovers and are made of chipboard and vinyl covering.  The nOrh 4.0 uses real wood and uses Vifa drivers.