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Older news - November 2000

Today, our nOrh 9.0 marble is being called the world's best two-way speaker. Demand for this product is simply unexpected. We have been advised to introduce a nOrh 10. My answer is we don't really know how to build a better product. We think that given our target, the 9.0 represents the best that we or anyone else has been able to do.

The nOrh 9.0 is our most expensive product. Nobody questions why it costs $3,000 (the introductory promotion price until January is $2,500). I have been advised that we shouldn't continue to introduce lower priced products. Some people tell me that these will detract from our ultra high quality products such as the marble 7.0 and 9.0.

My feeling is that everyone deserves the same level of respect. It doesn't matter to me if a customer spends $400 or $3,000. Every customer deserves the same level of respect. Respect means building the very best product that can be built for that price. The nOrh 4.0 is an example. While this is our lowest price loudspeaker, it has attracted more customers to nOrh than any other product. Many customers have started with 4.0s and upgraded to the 9.0.

I want to once again thank all of our customers for their patience. We are producing more products now than ever but demand continues to grow. We are able to ship marble 4.0s fairly quickly. The 7.0s and 9.0s will take about 30 days. The reason is that it takes one day to produce one side. It takes two days to produce a pair. We currently have two factories working on marble so it takes one day to make two speakers. We hope to grow this to four but you can imagine there is a long learning curve to build these speakers. We will not allow the quality to go down simply to sell more product.

Many of you have read the recent TNT review of the nOrh 9.0s marble. This review says that our marble 9.0 is the best two-way stand based loudspeaker the author had ever heard. We are quite humbled by this review. Many customers tell us they have never read such a glowing review about any product. While we are humbled, we are not surprised. We built the nOrh 9.0 marble to be the best.

Being the best means doing things differently. We believe that the two key areas we have employed to make the nOrh loudspeakers better are form and substance. Form refers to the unique shapes of our speakers. These are not simply for styling. The Prism and Drum series are built to eliminate standing waves and to use the energy that is often wasted in loudspeakers. The substance refers to our exploration of new materials to improve the sound of loudspeakers. I doubt that our ideas are new. They are simply impractical. The way we build speakers would make no sense if our goal was to make profit.

Most people have a hard time understanding a company that never was conceived to make a profit. Not making a profit is not the same as loosing money. Many companies loose money while trying to make a profit. Our goal was to build the best products and only make enough money to insure that the company survives. Many companies fail because they require so much profit. We are succeeding because we don't require any.

I funded nOrh Loudspeakers with cash. I never considered whether or not I would ever recover the money. I never looked at it as an investment. I wanted to do two things. I wanted to put people to work and I wanted to try to prove that I had a better idea how to build loudspeakers.

I don't depend on nOrh for any money. I work outside of nOrh and give my full attention to my employer. I make sure that the nOrh staff takes care of our customers and I personally answer all e-mails during my personal time. In my spare time, I tinker with new designs and new ideas. If it takes money to bring these products out, I use personal money to do that.

I have now begun to realize that if you take the profit motive out of a business, it becomes and individual endeavor and this is how you can excel. It isn't all that different as it is with athletes or any other people who want to excel. You can reward people for a great job but you can rarely motivate them with money to be exceptional. Motivation has to come from some other factor other than money.

My motivation is simple. I want to build the best audio products that can be built at a price which is reasonable. To do this, we have certain costs. The price of our products is based on costs and not on how the product compares to other manufacturers.

The way we do business breaks all the rules. Because I don't need profit, I don't need to worry about having a large business base to pay for my salary or lifestyle. I don't have to worry about how to increase sales. I don't have to advertise.

The money we save on promotion is put back into customer service. We have learned that on the Internet, customer service becomes your advertising.

I get e-mails frequently which tell us about the good will we have generated with our customer service. I realize that we are probably spending less money on customer service than most companies spend on promotion yet we are outspending our competitors on customer service.

Once again, we feel that the rules have changed. In the past, I could not succeed without building a dealer network. A dealer network would depend on advertising and reviews. Getting a review without advertising is nearly impossible. Why is it not then that major magazines are not interested in us? How is it that we are one of the most interesting and original loudspeakers with a huge base of supporters but you never read about us? The reason is that we are a threat to the status quo. We are building a company that doesn't need to advertise, doesn't need to have magazines acknowledge us nor do we need to have dealers. It all goes back to not being driven by profit.

We do have dealers who want to do business with us. They want to get away from all the glitz that has destroyed the "high-end" industry. They want a fresh start and they would like to sell our products. I ask them to be patient. We can't even meet our current demand so it would be difficult to take on any dealers. We are increasing our manufacturing capacity and will take on some dealers when we are better able to supply them.

We are now getting nearly 300,000 hits on this website per month. I expect this to hit 1,000,000 next year. I wonder sometimes what the value is for a site that has such a large reader base. I imagine that the value of this website (as poorly constructed as it is) is probably worth more than the products we sell. I think it will be interesting to see what happens to this company as we do get to 1,000,000 readers.

We have had many requests for speakers stands. The nOrh 9.0s and 7.0s will work fine on just about any surface that is at least 10 inches wide and 10 inches long. Larger is better. The stand must support 85 pounds. You can use a chest of drawers or small table if you like This is probably the least expensive way. We have designed a very attractive and strong marble and stainless steel stand. The combination of marble is steel is expensive so the price is $500 shipped. We understand if this is too expensive.

Our product line continues to expand. Our CD players are shipping and our preamps have just begun to ship. The CD player is getting rave reviews and we have sent out copies to be reviewed by some of the Internet magazine. Stay tuned.

The ACA Preamp is simply one of the best products we have ever introduced. I am astonished at the difference it has made in the sound of our systems. We have tested it against preamps costing more than $4,000.00 and we think the ACA sounds better. The ACA also has more functions than you will typically find in a preamp. It includes a video passthrough, headphone jack, DACT volume control, sealed gold plated relays, and a phono section. The price shipped is $900.00.

We have gone into production with our second run of Multiamps. We haven't made any major changes because demand is so high for what we have. The Multiamp will have to go up in price later as we have additional costs. We are not building this ourselves anymore. We are sending it to be manufactured. Anyone who wants to get the amplifier at the current cost can order. The prices will go up in January.

The Prism 5.2 have shipped. Our first customers comment on the quality of workmanship and surprising high quality of sound. We will ship the 6.2 in November and we are pushing hard to have the 6.6 come out shortly afterwards. As usual, the delays are caused by us tinkering to make the products even better. The 6.2 and 6.6 are way beyond what we had originally intended to build. Chances are, these prices will have to be adjusted once we know what our final costs are. We have made these speakers much better than we originally thought we would.

We should have some ceramic 4.0s done in the next couple of weeks. This has been a very aggressive project. It is very difficult to build the loudspeaker from ceramics but the sound quality will make this effort worthwhile.

Ceramic is one of the most acoustically reflective substances available. Like cement and marble, sound will reflect rather than passing through. Despite ceramic's acoustic properties, few loudspeakers have ever been made using ceramics. There are many reasons. The main reason is it takes a very high level of craftsmanship to work in ceramics. Another challenge is that there is a large amount of shrinkage. It takes a very experienced craftsman to know how large to make the mold to arrive at the final product.

We are now shipping white, black, and light blue ceramic 4.0s. Other colors will be shipping soon--dark blue, purble, green and red.

Besides being highly reflective, ceramics have the advantage of opening up a wide range of color options. We have designed the 4.0 Ceramic to be a very attractive loudspeaker. The feet are made from solid stainless steel in a style the compliments the 4.0s modern styling.

I get lots of questions about the nOrh 7.0 vs. the nOrh 9.0. People are confused which they should buy. The answers are as follows:

• If you are mostly interested in home theater in which you will use a subwoofer, go with the 7.0.
• If you have a lower powered tube amplifier, go with the 7.0.
• If you listen primarily to music and you are a fanatic about detail and imaging, go with the 9.0.
• If you want to get the most bass from the smallest cabinet and don't want to use a subwoofer, go with the 9.0.
• If you always wanted a loudspeaker like the Wilson Watt Puppies, B&W 801s, or other very expensive loudspeakers, go with the 7.0 and our subwoofer.
• If you like marble but have a limited budget and a smaller room, go with the marble 4.0s

We also get questions about the 4.0, 5.1 and Prisms. Here are some considerations:

• If you are using an A/V receiver particularly a lower powered one, go with the Prisms.
• If you don't have the space for a stand, go with the Prisms.
• If you don't plan to add a subwoofer to a home theater, go with the Prisms.
• If you want to use the speaker in an office or small room, go with the 4.0s.
• If you want to hang the speakers, go with the 4.0s.
• If you want a loudspeaker your daughter can take to college, go with the 4.0s.
• If you want to match a left and right speaker up with the 4.0s, go with the 5.1.
• Choose the 5.1 if you like the style better than the Prism.
• You can mix and match Prisms with 4.0s and 5.1s. We suggest that the Prisms be used for left and right as they will give more dynamics and more bass.

Our website is now two years old. We are far more successful than we ever dreamed of being. We hope we continue to offer great value, original ideas, great customer support and high quality for many years to come. We appreciate our customers for their patients. We are not always perfect. We have made mistakes but we have learned from them. I believe that we have taken care of every customer problem to the complete satisfaction of every customer. Our goal is to grow the company for the benefit of the customer. I take no money from nOrh. Our employees are rewarded very well for their quality work. The profit we make on any individual sale either goes back into providing heroic customer support or it goes into new products. You can be assured that none of the profits are going into automobiles, vacations, high executive salaries or any other extras that don't have anything to do with the quality of our products.

Thank you very much for visiting nOrh Loudspeakers.

Sincerely,

Michael C. Barnes
President
nOrh Loudspeaker Company, Ltd

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