News - December 2004

First of all, I hope that everyone reading this will have a great holiday season. I hope that next year will be a great year for all of you and that you not only get what you want for Christmas (particularly if it comes from nOrh) but that you continue to get what you want for all of 2005.

I have been getting a lot of letters asking me about products we haven't mentioned for a while. One of these products is the ACA 2b which is one of the best values we carry. The ACA 2b is a high-end preamp that costs less than almost any preamp available. The ACA 2b is a beautiful product, with excellent build quality and outstanding sound.

The ACA 2b uses a platinum coated switch. The volume control is made by Alps and there ACA 2b has three inputs and and a record output. Furthermore, there are two amp outputs.

The ACA 2b is still only $395.00 USD shipped to North America. Please contact us from other regions to check on shipping charges. The ACA 2b is the best preamplifier in this price range. The ACA 2b has plenty of drive to power long cables. The ACA 2b works with both tube and solid state amplifiers. Here is your chance to buy a tube preamp for the price of some passive preamps.

For those of you who still listen to LPs or have an LP collection, we have a phono preamp that you can add for only $295.00 USD. However, a better deal is to go with the SE 18. The SE 18 has an active preamp, integrated RIAA (phono) equalization and 18 watts of Single Ended Power.

Notes

As always, I have been very busy this month. A lot of people write to me about Le Amp 2. We have been working on an upgrade to Le Amp 2 that uses a 550 V/A transformer. The new power supply is absolutely quiet, more reliable and produces better bass. We are working on a plan to allow customers to upgrade existing Le Amp 2s. We are then going to produce a new version of Le Amp that will incorporate this new power supply.

One of my problems is getting photos of our products. Most of them are shipped out before I can snap a photo. Today, I spotted a SM 6.9 going out the door. I have not had a chance to photograph one of these in a long time. The SM 6.9 is an excellent value. It produces very solid and strong bass. The synthetic marble is available in a variety of colors. This pair is about to be shipped so I am happy I had a chance to take a photo first.

It is almost Christmas

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.

In October 2004, 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/.

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.

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.