News - November 2004

There is still time to order a pair of nOrh 3.0s for Christmas. The nOrh 3.0s have become our most popular loudspeakers. Most people are stunned at how good these small speakers can sound. Even more impressive is that despite the nOrh 3.0s modest price, the nOrh 3.0s are beautifully handcrafted. They are able to compliment the elegant decor of your house.

The modestly priced nOrh 3.0s are small, great sounding and beautiful

A bit more than a year ago, I moved into a new house. My new home doesn't have space to set up my larger audio systems. I also now spend more time in front of a computer than I do anywhere else. In order to continue to enjoy music, I have a pair of 3.0s in my office. Because of space, I use a pair of Prism 3.0s. My daughter has asked me to make her up a pair of pink nOrh 3.0 drums for her dormitory. She had a pair of pink 4.0s but she wants something smaller.

Last month, I sent our craftsman to a course on finishing so that we can make the nOrh 3.0s look even more spectacular. I am told that we can now do just about any color and make it look great. My personal pair are black.

My Personal nOrh 3.0

nOrh 4.1 Teak

The cost of Teak has gone up to the point where we are not going to be producing more Teak speakers -- unless people write and are willing to pay the higher prices. We were paying $75.00 for the wood to build just one speaker. The cost of Teak has now doubled so it would cost us $150.00 for the wood alone to build one speaker. We still have some Teak 4.1 speakers left for $275.00 each. These are beautiful loudspeakers that can be mounted upside down, placed on a TV or used on a table. The norh 4.1s can be angled so that the tweeter is pointing towards the listener's ears. The speakers include a sliding stand that allows you to angle the speakers. The 4.1 uses the same Vifa drivers and the same crossovers that 5.1s and 4.0s use. I have a 4.1 on my TV in my main system.

Open Source Software

One of my passions, other than audio, is Open Source Software. Here in Thailand, it is very easy to pick up pirated software and if I wanted to, I could pick up just about any software I wanted for about $4.00 per CD. Despite this, I prefer to use Open Source software. In many cases, Open Source Software is better than the commercial offerings. My default browser is Firefox. Firefox is based on Mozilla. For those of you who don't know Mozilla was a community based effort to preserve the code base from Netscape. What has resulted is a far more modern, more secure and more accurate web browser.

Mozilla was very much like Netscape in that it integrated a browser, HTML editor and e-mail package. Firefox is the browser only part of Mozilla. Thunderbird is the e-mail portion of Mozilla. My preferred e-mail package is Thunderbird and my preferred browser is Firefox.

My original HTML editor was MicroSoft FrontPage. I stopped using FrontPage as my primary editor when I found out how difficult it was to move the pages to a website that didn't have support for FrontPage extensions. I started doing my web pages on StarOffice and then OpenOffice. I then moved to Macromedia Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is a great program but I never really used most of the features.

I am a big fan of Linux so I am always looking for tools that I can use on Linux as well as on Microsoft Windows. I have recently found a web editor which is one of the best I have worked with, yet it is Open Source. The name of the package is N|Vu (pronounced N-View for new view). I highly recommend any individual or organization doing web pages check out N|Vu. The website is http://www.nvu.com/.

Audio Streaming

I spend more time in front of my computer than I do anywhere else. I rarely get a chance to just sit down and listen to music unless I am working on my computer. I do take time to watch movies but that is usually during my workouts. Other than that, I have to play CDs on my computer or watch movies. As I am in Thailand, I don't have any alternatives to streaming audio for listening to music or talk shows.

I listen to a pair of nOrh 3.0s and use a SE 9 amp to drive them. For me, this is a very good system and I use it more than I have ever used any audio system before. I am currently using Mepis Linux as my standard operating system. In order to listen to streaming audio Linux, I am using mplayer. By loading the plugin and the appropriate codecs, it is possible to listen to virtually all Microsoft Media Player streaming without running Microsoft software. While there are a lot of radio stations that stream, one of the best sources of streaming for me is the peer to peer network Mecora.

Mecora allows individuals to stream their own licensed music over the network so that other people can listen in. This can be a very handy way to preview music on demand. The quality of the sound is surprisingly good. If you don't happen to like a particularly son, pick another stream. Mecora allows you to form a community of friends who can share music together. You can also share photos and message each other.

Streaming audio is very important for me because it allows me to keep up-to-date with the mood in America. I listen to everything from NPR to a variety of talk and news programs in the United States. While some might argue the streaming audio might not be an appropriate subject on a website normally focused on higher-end audio, the sound is much better than AM radio which is featured on most receivers and a lot of people probably listen to news and radio on FM as well. Besides, in the future, bandwidth will improve and it just might be that streaming audio will be the preferred way of listening to music.

It is also possible to capture audio and video streams, store them to disk and then copy them onto other media. This means you can copy hours of your favorite radio broadcast, make an MP3 file and copy it to your personal MP3 player or to a MP3 capable CDROM.

I have found a bundle of software that allows you to record video and audio streams. The bundle includes WM Recorder to record windows media, RM Recorder to record Real Audio and WM VCR that allows you to set up your computer to download audio streams whenever you want. You can even record programs simultaneously or listen to one broadcast while recording another. It is even possible to use dialup or slow networks to download streams.

NorhTec

NorhTec is a separate company from nOrh but I like to give everyone here an update. Some of our applications are being used for entertainment. I envision a device such as the device pictured above eventually being a way to distribute audio and video throughout a home. Today, a device such as the one pictured above, can cost as little as $200.00 USD each without a hard disk. These can be set up as wired or wireless thin clients. It is possible to use streaming audio from a server to distribute music or video on demand. It is possible to hook a CD ROM or DVDROM up via the USB port. NorhTec is also working on configurations that will fit into automobiles or boats.

NorhTec has contracts for over 5,000 of these devices already. Basically, the MicroClient is a small x86 based PC. There MicroClient can be custom configured in the following ways:

The MicroClient is small, consumes only 4 watts of power. The MicroClient is an ideal dedicated computer for applications such as advertising, point of sale, thin clients, POS, security, and firewall gateways. The MicroClient can be configured to boot from a network or can be booted from solid state disk or a standard 2.5 inch hard disk. The case of the MicroClient acts like a large heatsink to keep the processor operating very cool. The motherboard is an industrial grade motherboard.

Ultimately, my hope is that with a small/low-cost computer such as the MicroClient pictured above, nOrh and NorhTec can work together on multimedia systems such as wireless streaming audio or video or low-cost structured housing applications. The MicroClient is often less expensive than traditional computing solutions. The MicroClient is highly reliable and operates under environmental conditions that most other computers simply can not tolerate.

With the MicroClient, you could wirelessly stream music or video throughout your home. You could access your computer based jukebox from any room in your house. The MicroClient would be ideal for putting a jukebox in your car or setting up any dedicated computer application where space, costs, and power are a consideration.

Movies

Being here in Bangkok, I often have to wait to see movies that have been out for quite a while in the US. Many films will never make it here. I watch most movies on DVD. A few months ago, I wrote about a funny film I saw on DVD called Shaun of the Dead. I thought this movie must had been shown in the US so I was surprised when I saw that the movie is finally getting its first run now.

My daughter just went back to the US to go to University at VNU in Richmond, Va. She wrote me and asked me if the movie Hero that was recently playing in the US is the same Hero she saw almost two years ago. I told her that it was. Hero was distributed in Asia long before it was recently released in the US.

A few years ago, I wrote about a Thai movie that I thought was very good. The movie, Bangkok Dangerous, went on to win some awards at film festivals, including a film festival in Canada. Soon a Thai movie will be shown in the US. This movie is called Ong Bak. Ong Bak is a sacred Buddha statuette that is stolen. The villagers gather their resources and send BoonTing (Phanon Yeeram aka Tony Ja) to Bangkok to bring back Ong Bak. Along the way, Boonting is conned out of his savings and winds up in several unbelievable fights that include a Tuk Tuk chase through Bangkok.

If that story doesn't grab you, then the action will. Ong Bak is filmed without ropes and without green screens. The action scenes are jaw dropping and quite unbelievable. Many of the action shots are shot with multiple cameras to prove the authenticity of the stunts. I think that this gets in the way of the story telling, but then, this movie isn't about story.

Ong Bak should be a landmark film. I don't know if it will be but it deserves to be. I showed a friend of mine Ong Bak on DVD here in Thailand. He loved it. The DVD has a making of sequence that shows test shots that were set up to prove the stunts that would be part of the movie. Ong Bak displays sheer physical brilliance. It took four years to bring this movie to the screen and the hard work shows. I hope that this movie gets the attention it deserves when it is released in the US. Quite frankly, I am getting bored of some of the very bad action movies now. The green screen work being done now in many movies doesn't look real. Ong Bak is authentic action and real stunts. This website will let you download or view the making of clips. Please forward this web page out to anyone you think will support this movie and let your friends know what a great value the SE 9 is and about how great nOrh loudspeakers are.

Photography

I got a lot of e-mail from people thanking me for my comments on the Nikon D70. I have decided to leave this section up as a lot of people will be interested in buying a digital camera for Christmas.

When I was in the Army many years ago, there were three things that every soldier serving in Asia bought. These were, a good stereo, a nice watch and a great camera. I never saw a 35 mm SLR camera until I joined the Army but in the Army, everyone had a nice Canon, Olympus or Nikon SLR. I still have some very old cameras, including my old Yashica twin lens reflex camera.

I have always been amazed to see people go on expensive vacations taking very cheap cameras. I have been in Hawaii and watched people use 110 cameras to snap their shots. Here in Bangkok, I see people stand at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha using a disposable camera.

I have made similar mistakes. While I did take my older Nikon 6060 with me to Paris, I also brought with me my Mavica and shot about 20 floppies worth of compressed 640 x 480 images. What was I thinking? Years later, the images are simply not worth looking at.

I have been an early adopter of digital cameras. I used my old Sony Mavica to take many of the original photographs on the nOrh website. I have had four generation of Sony digital cameras. My last Sony was the DSC-S85. The DSC-S85 reached a level of performance that I was able to suppress my desire to buy a new digital camera. Last year, while I was in Japan, I nearly gave in to buy a $700 Sony with 5 Megapixels. I was able to convince myself that spending $700 for a camera which was virtually the same as I had with just a bit more resolution was probably not a good use of my money.

This year, two cameras caught my eye. Last year, I thought about the Nikon D100 but its price tag was just too high for me. This year, the D70 seemed like the ideal camera for me. I decided to go for the D70 and buy the Sigma 18-50mm 1:35-5.6 DC D lens. The Nikon lens would be the best choice for anyone starting from scratch. I had many Nikon Lenses so I bought the Sigma to fill in for my wide angle to 50 mm.

The D70 is the best digital camera I have ever worked with. It is amazingly fast. The feel is absolutely perfect. I can remember taking pictures of friends weddings and worrying about whether the film was moving through the camera or worrying about whether or not the images would develop properly. The D70 takes all the worry as you can see the images right away.

The resulting images are so much richer and more natural looking than any digital pictures I have ever taken. I copied some of my images off to CD and had them printed at a photolab. The prints looked exactly like images printed with film -- except no scratches or dust.

I took the following photos. The resolution has been dramatically reduced for the web but these give a general idea of how the D70 performs. Click on the images to view a larger version.

Is the D70 perfect? No. I have seen that there is a tendency for the Nikon D70 to blow out highlights in some images. Many indoor photos or low level photos appear underexposed. Even so, I was quite impressed at the D70's ability to handle low-light situations. The two photos above were taken without any flash, using the auto ISO mode.

I can strongly recommend the Nikon D70 to anyone who is serious about the photos they take but still want a digital camera. The D70 is an excellent SLR that just happens not to use film.

SE 9 for Christmas

The SE 9 remains our best selling product. The SE 9 is the most reasonably priced high end integrated amplifier available. I use the SE 9 and a pair of 3.0s in my office and because I work so many hour, most of the music I listen to is on this system. As modest as this system is (price and size), I am quite pleased with the sound. We have sold hundreds of SE 9 and everyone who has bought one is quite pleased with the sound. The SE 9 is a great Christmas gift. For the office or kitchen, the nOrh 3.0s are a great low-cost combination. For people who are using the SE 9 as their primary system, the nOrh Classic 6.0s are the ideal choice. The Classic 6.0s are low-cost, full range and very efficient.

Tube vs. Solid State

I get more e-mail about tubes vs. transistors than I do about anything else. The reason that we get so much mail is that we are one of the few companies that sells both tube amps and transistor amps.

There are many audiophiles who swear that tube amplifiers sound better. They go so far as to claim that solid state amplifiers simply can not reproduce sound as well as tube amplifiers. I don't believe this. I believe that it is possible to build great amplifiers that are either solid state or tube based. I also believe you can build very bad amplifiers using either approach.

If it is possible to build a great sounding solid state amplifier, why have we been selling tube amplifiers. The reason is simple -- harshness.

Harshness

From the very early days of solid state amplifiers, listeners have noted that some solid state amplifiers sound harsh. This isn't to say that it isn't possible to build a smooth sounding solid state amplifier. There are many very good solid state amplifiers that sound excellent -- with no trace as harshness.

The problem is that virtually all consumer level audio products sound harsh when compared to high-end audio equipment. A few years ago, nOrh released the CD 1. This was a CD player with a tube output section. This was nOrh's first tube product. The CD 1 received tremendous praise. We continue to get e-mail asking us to bring the product out. Unfortunately, the transport we were using was discontinued and we were unable to produce any more.

What set the CD 1 above other CD players was the fact there was no harshness. Some audiophiles wrote that CDs couldn't sound as good as vinyl. By eliminating the harshness, the CD 1 won over many audiophiles.

There are solid state amplifiers which sound smooth and detailed. Unfortunately, these are often very expensive. Many audiophile amplifiers cost over $10,000 USD. Some cost even more. Why do audiophiles spend so much money on amplifier? Many audiophiles have learned through the years how to listen to music and over the years they have become very sensitive to the typical harsh sound from consumer HIFI products.

Originally, nOrh built solid state components. We created amplifiers and preamps that delivered smooth and dynamic sound. The problem was that the combination came to about $2,000.00. While this is much less money that what other company's charge, $2,000 is beyond the budget for many people who simply want to enjoy music.

Two years ago, nOrh introduced the SE 9. The SE 9 was and still is one of the best values ever. The SE 9 is one of the most cost effective solutions to harsh sounding audio. The SE 9 is powerful enough to drive most reasonable loudspeakers and reliable enough to deliver years of audio enjoyment.

We have sold hundreds of SE 9s over the past couple of years. We have received many letters of praise telling us how wonderful the SE 9 sounds. The SE 9 eliminates the harshness and recreates the sort of sound that audiophiles spending many thousands of dollars desire.

The SE 9 has enough power to drive most existing loudspeakers. Even with inefficient loudspeakers, the SE 9 can play loud enough to drown out conversation or in my case, get your significant other to come down screaming to turn down the music. How much louder do you need? I used to believe that I needed enough power to destroy any loudspeaker. I wasn't happy unless my amplifier was drawing as much electricity as an iron. I now find that the SE 9 and its larger brother, the SE 18, are more than enough amplifier for my listening.

The SE 9 is the ideal integrated amplifier for an office, dorm, bedroom or small apartment. The SE 9 is the perfect starter systems and it is the ideal upgrade for someone who is now using a mini component or some other "all-in-one" solution. The SE 9 is available for $450.00 USD shipped directly to your home.

The ACA 2b preamp is one of the best values available. The ACA 2b is a small, inexpensive, high performance preamp that costs a fraction of what other high quality preamps cost. We have received rave reviews on this product but its low price leaves many possible customers suspicious. We ship the ACA 2b for only $395.00 yet it sounds better than many preamps that cost much more. The ACA 2b is an ideal low cost preamp to mate up with lower cost solid state amplifiers because most low cost solid state amplifiers tend to be harsh. The ACA 2b provides a lot of voltage so that it is possible to run long wires between your amplifier and preamplifier.

Loudspeakers

nOrh has focused on building better loudspeakers. Our loudspeakers are better because we use better materials, better drivers, better components and better designs. Our nOrh 3.0 is an amazing product that sells for only $250.00 USD shipped. For anyone wanting amazing audio from a lower powered receiver or integrated, we strongly suggest our Classic 6.1. The Classic 6.1 is only $500.00 per pair shipped. There are simply no loudspeakers that sound, look or perform better at this price.

We continue to offer the Classic 7.0s for $995.00 shipped. Given the lower value of the USD, this is an amazing offer. I know of no other loudspeaker in this price range using such high quality drivers. The Classic 7.0s continue to use Scanspeak components. Most loudspeakers in this price range use OEM Chinese drivers.

We also continue to provide the highly acclaimed Mini 9.0 kit. We sell the mini 9.0 kit for $500 shipped. You only need to add drivers. The Mini 9.0 is the best sounding small loudspeaker I have ever heard. The look is stunning.