New M3 from nOrh Loudspeaker
I am sure a lot of people are wondering what have I been up to. I have received quite a few letter asking that question. A couple of months ago, I had to go to Nigeria. As I wrote months ago, NorhTec, is bidding on a large project there. We have designed a computer kiosk that can operate from a battery charge for 18 hours. The system is a self-contained system that integrates a card reader, touch screen and printer in a rugged case. There are six dry cell batteries contained in the case. They system can be operated from any DC or AC power supply. There was some interest in using the device as a portable booking station as well. Many of the police stations in Nigeria do not have reliable electricity. This is true for much of Africa. Even in the developed world, there are many applications for a device that can be deployed anywhere - even with no electricity.
NorhTec Kiosk that can run on battery charge for 18 hours
While the trip to Nigeria took me out of the picture for a while, something else happened that took even more time - the MicroClient Jr. Four years ago, NorhTec started producing computers with the idea that a new model for computing was needed. I formed NorhTec with the idea of building small, energy efficient and fanless computers that would be the building blocks for creating the new generation of ubiquitous computers. The idea was that in order for the Internet to move to the next stage, a new type of device would be needed. This device would have to operate in places where traditional desktop computers could not.
As most people reading this know, when I started nOrh, I started it as an outlet for my creative self and not as a business to make money for myself. I had an idea of how to build a better computer and I wanted to use this idea to create better audio, jobs, and to have a good time. There were some people who were hostile to the idea of a computer person getting into audio. I got lots of e-mails telling me to go back to computing. The fact was I never left that world because all my income was derived working for a large computer company. I didn't want to be in conflict with my employers so I made sure I took no money from nOrh and all of my work was voluntary.
To this day, I haven't taken any money from nOrh. I still operate it with the intention of creating jobs and producing the best value and best sounding audio I can.
When I started NorhTec, my goal was to eventually combine both companies because I believed that the home media was going to go to computers anyway. I remember four years ago, I showed one of our Silent Servers playing music using FLAC files. FLAC files are lossless compression files that take about half the space of a CD music file. Most of the people seeing this were amazed. I wrote articles on the website about how I saw the future as music moving to the hard disk. I remember getting lots of e-mails attacking me for my thoughts. I even had an e-mail argument with an author from Stereophile because they were so opposed to the idea.
Today, nobody scoffs at listening to music on a hard disk. Today, many people keep their entire library of music on iPods or similar music player.
Several years ago, I sat down with my employers. I told them that the next goldmine in computing would be for the company that works out the distribution model for selling music over the Internet. This was before file sharing was popular and it was before Apple had created the iPod. My employer couldn't see what I was talking about.
Today, Apple is not only successful selling iPods, they are also successful in distributing music. What amazes me is how so many people didn't get it. When I was young, I used to buy singles. These were 45 RPM analog disks that we played the most popular songs on. I could not afford to buy many albums at this time but I could buy singles. I would stack up my singles with inserts and play them on my monophonic record player.
People who are buying songs for 99 cents each are enjoying the same freedom that I enjoyed when I was young. Not only are they buying only what they like (no fat or filler tracks), they are also creating their own playlists which is what we did when we picked the stack of records we wanted to play.
I read recently, that while CD sales are declining, there is a surge of interest in analog records. Today's teenagers are buying singles. It is interesting to think that while the CD is declining, the analog vinyl disk is surging.
All this comes back to the point that computers and music are now merging. Music is being created on computers, distributed over computer networks and played back on computers.
While the iPod model is good for portable playing, many people will want a larger device to store their full collections in a format that has better fidelity that MP3 or other lossy compression techniques. The problem with traditional computers is that they are too big and too noisy. I also think they would draw too much power if left on all the time.
Four years ago, I build a prototype of a multimedia device called the Panda. We sold a few of them based on style but I have been holding off until the technology gives me exactly what I want to build a killer product. I don't think that technology is that far off.
One of the products that NorhTec worked on was a very low priced computer. The computer is designed to sell in large quantities at $90.00 each. The computer draws only 10 watts of power with a hard disk and less if used with solid state. The system can boot over a network so it is possible to create an OS that loads from the network from a server and then the device can be used to stream audio or video. When word of this device got out, we were bombarded with e-mails. Articles appeared throughout the Interment about our sub-$90.00 computer. We got hundreds and hundreds of orders for $120.00 each for evaluation units. From that, we have seen follow up orders as well.
MicroClient Jr
One of the areas where MultiMedia is being used early is for advertising. We have been contacted by companies around the world that want to use the MicroClient Jr for advertising or driving large screens. We have a company in Thailand that has developed a menu system for ordering food based on the MicroClient Jr. We have also been working on some large thin client projects where we combine the MicroClient Jr with Point of Sale terminals to create very robust and low-cost POS.
Customers have contacted me about building advertising systems with dual sided screens. We were asked to also consider developing a sound system to go along with this system. This application would require over 20,000 systems. Of course, there is nothing that I would enjoy doing more than being able to work on a self contained system that integrated all the elements of video and sound and make it sound very good as well. Hopefully, I have found the opportunity to work on a project that involves both nOrh and NorhTec.
nOrh has been selling amplifiers for over eight years. Our goal has always been to create a great sounding product that is reliable and reasonably priced. Today, we still have people who are writing to us about their MultiAmps and Le Amps which they have enjoyed all these years. Both the MultiAmp and Le Amp were built on the same output device. The device was a single chip amplifier. The device had very good sound and what made both amps sound very good was that each of them had a very large power supply.
Power supplies are the most expensive part of an amplifier. The transformers are heavy and expensive. The storage capacitors are expensive. The output devices are typically not that expensive. The other issue is that you have to deal with heat. The most efficient conventional amplifiers will create a lot of wasted energy in heat.
I have recently had a chance to audition amplifiers built using the TriPath parts. My overall impression of these amplifiers is that they are quite good. I think that an amplifier that is properly executed using TriPath parts will sound better than previous generations of low cost amplifiers. I believe that they also sound better than a good number of receivers and integrated amplifiers. I applaud the Tripath based systems when they are used to save power, reduce heat and lower costs.
Having said that, I do not think that a TriPath based system can reach the performance of the very best sounding equipment. I do not think that the TriPath based systems I have heard can sound as good as my Bedini or Plinius amplifiers. I also don't think it can sound as good as the Le Amp. I think that in terms of smoothness, the TriPath based systems are better than any low-cost amplifiers I have heard. I think it beats my old Adcom stuff and sounds much better than the Marantz monoblocks that were quite popular. I do not think that these amplifiers have quite the bass performance or impact that I have heard from other amplifiers. I also have a sense of missing rhythm.
Once again, I am not being hypercritical. I recently listened to an integrated amplifier from PianoDisc. They plan to sell the amplifier for $299.00. I was quite critical of the cosmetics and the inclusion of a very cheap five band equalizer. However, when I bypassed the passive volume control of the unit and drove it with nOrh's ACA 2B, the sound was really quite good -- better than I had heard from any $300.00 unit.
I listened to the amplifier against our own SE 9. I believe that the SE 9 beat the unit sonically but the Piano Disk amplifier had more power and was cheaper. I was forced to admit that I could actually live with the sound of the Piano Disk amplifier and if I didn't have anything to compare it to, I would be quite happy. I can not say this about almost any receivers I have listened to in the past several years.
While I applaud companies such as Piano Disk that produce a very good sounding product for small money, I am hypercritical of companies that produce horrible sounding products for a lot of money. I went into a ice cream parlor here in Thailand recently. The place had a small system with an iPod serving as its music source. The music was the sort of Jazz that I just love to listen to. If the place had a pair of nOrh 3.0s and a SE 9, I would have been tapping my toes. Instead, the iPod was playing through a nicely styled plastic thing that looked like a boom box which bore a brand name that is well known and starts with the letter B. I couldn't get over the idea that I was listening to jazz over a boom box. The sound was thin, over equalized and just awful. I might have forgotten this except that I saw an article on CNET. The article reviewed another product from this company. The product cost over $1,000. While the article gave the product a less than glowing review, users who had commented on the product gave it a horrible review.
$1,000 is still a lot of money so far as I am concerned. With $1,000, you could buy a pair of marble nOrh 3.0 speakers and a SE 9 tube amplifier and the sound would be glorious. You could supply your own iPod or CD player and the sound would be high-end. For the same $1,000, you could buy Piano Disks, integrated amplifier and have enough money to buy a pair of nOrh 6.1s. The sound would be full, loud and musical.
I don't understand why people will pay so much money for such poor sound. There are cheaper ways of getting this level of sound. If people can tolerate low end sound, then they can buy some Chinese multimedia speakers for under $100 and play their iPod through that. The sound won't be good but the savings will be substantial.
The L3 are the best sounding amplifiers that nOrh has ever sold. We have been working for four years to get the product to the state it is now and I have to say that the sound is everything I have ever hoped for. We started four years ago on the Le Amp 2 project. Le Amp 2 was going to be a very high powered and very high-end product that would sell for very little money. Our supplier took our money and ran. We tried to salvage the project and wound up costing ourselves a fortune. Le Amp 2 sounded as good as we wanted it to sound but we had issues with heat and reliability.
L3 took over a year to complete. We designed the amplifier to be extremely reliable and easy to repair. We used the same output components we used in the Le Amp 2 but we spaced them out on two sides doubling the heat sink capacity so that the amp would run cooler. We increased the size of the power supply but reduced the output. We did to give the amplifier what I call lots of torque. The amplifier sounds like a huge power amp but it doesn't consume the power, take up a lot of space or cost as much as a monster amplifier.
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L3 Pictures. This amp features a balanced input
We sent the amplifier out to a lab for testing and the numbers have come back better than we had hoped.
| Frequency Response | 0.5 Hz - 180 kHz |
| Sensitivity Input | 1.3 Volts |
| Input Impedance | 33 K ohms |
| Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) | 0.002% @ 1kHz 10 watts |
| Maximum Rated Power Output | 120 Watts RMS @ 8 ohms, 200 watts RMS @ 4 ohms |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) | 8.8 " x 6.5 " x 9.5 " |
| Weight | 8 Kg |
The L3 is a very reasonably priced high-end sounding amplifier designed to be bullet proof. This is the best sounding solid state amplifier we have ever sold. Our goal was to build an amplifier that can stand its own against amplifiers selling at any price. It it turns out that some ultra expensive amplifier does sound better - we can live with that. However, I honestly don't believe that this level of sound has ever been available at this price. This is the amplifier that has taken us nearly 8 years to build.
Sincerely,
Michael C. Barnes
nOrh Loudspeaker Company, Ltd.
