Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: nOrh 7.0 Speakers by Tyson

after having these speakers in my home for a few weeks, i wanted to post my impressions. let me not waste any time - i love these speakers! they replaced a pair of monitor audio speakers that I was quite fond of. the norhs are better by far, which is very high praise considering the monitor's were my speaker of choice in the under $5000 category. so why did i sell them & get new speakers? because they had a spike in frequency response at around 10k hz. not a big spike, but enough that it bothered my ears after about 2hrs of listening. other than that they were great speakers in my opinion, but like i said, the norhs are better. the strengths of the monitor's were in speed, transparency, detail, driver coherence, and delineation of instruments even in loud/complex parts of the music. the norhs are at least equal to them in all these area's, plus it handily beats them in a couple of other areas that i feel are very important: tonality of instruments are much more accurate and music has a fuller, richer sound, more like you would hear in a live performance. plus, the bass is much better on the norhs. both speakers actually have the same bass extension, more or less, but the norh is much more forcefull in the low end, and has signifigantly more detail down there. with the monitors I learned that I am very sensitive to any tipping up in the high frequencies - I can hardly listen to most metal dome tweeters anymore. becuase of the norhs excellent tonality, details are actually a little easier to hear, but the speaker still preserves a warm, beguiling, but also very dynamic overall sound. how does it compare to other speakers out there? well, meadowlark uses scan speak drivers also, but in a vented transmission line enclosure. I think the norhs sound better because the crossover is much more transparent. when i listened to "Hands" by Jewel, her vocals "bloomed" out rather noticably on certain notes with the meadowlarks, but through the norhs every thing is smooth and coherent. Compared to the Dynaudios (audience 50 & 1.3) I thought the Dynes sounded just a bit forward, but were otherwise quite excellent (particualry the 1.3). However the norhs seem to strike it just right in overall balance. Someone else said they seem to be a cross between the accuracy of the Dunleavy designs and the rounded warmth of the Hales designs. I rather have to agree with that. So, where are the norhs lacking? In two words - Deeb Bass. They are quite strong down to the upper/mid bass, reaching 40-45 hz with authority, but nothing at all below that. Fortunately norh also offers a matching sub that acts as a stand, which I am in the process of buying a pair now (see below) but a point by point analysis does not really give you an accurate view of the overall quality of this speaker. let me give you a few samples of how some of the people in my life reacted to them. when my wife Ortrun first listened to them she said they were "seem like the ocean - the music just seems to wash over me". my neighbor George commented that they sound excellent from anywhere in the room, unlike the monitor audios, which had to be listened to in the sweet spot. but perhaps most telling is the reaction of my friend Steve who was visiting me from out of state. he is definitely not an audiophile, but he is a big Shostakovich fan, so we qued up the Shostakovich string quartet #11. everything is going along nicely & it sounds really good, but i can tell that steve is not really impressed. but then we get to the slow movement and about 15 seconds in to it the cello joins the other instruments in a plaintive, intense melody. the look on his face at that moment traversed from shock/amazement to pure emotion. he could not sit still - he got up & started pacing around muttering "unbelievable! un-f***ing-believable!" i could see tears in his eyes. do the norhs connect you emotionally to the music? yes, i'd say they do. plus, as an added bonus, they look nothing like regular speakers, and the wood finish (mine is the walnut finish) is absolutely gorgeous - the pictures that are on the norh web site (www.norh.com) simply do not do them justice. put it this way - my wife recently had a small get together at our house for some people that go to her church & almost everyone commented on how nice they looked. these are people that find the typical look of speakers very offputting. a couple of people told me they were going to put aside some money in the near future to buy a pair. on a side note, i would like to say that dealing with Michael Barnes, the proprietor of norh, is an absolute pleasure. all of my emails were returned very quickly (I always had a response within a day). plus he answered all my questions, however whimsical or silly they might have seemed. i was able to find the scan speak drivers locally for a great deal less than other people can get them and Mr. Barnes graciously allowed me to order the 7.0's without the drivers so I could source them myself. but, perhaps the most astounding part is the customer service available from this company that you will not be able to find anywhere else. for example, norh sells a subwoofer that exactly matches their speakers. it uses a vifa 8 inch driver in a transmission line box with an absolutely amazing amp/crossover driving it. they sell them in pairs & they work great as stands (& look really nice too) but i did not want a vifa woofer, i wanted a 10 inch scan speak driver. Mr. Barnes directed my to Yuths, their head engineer. I gave Yuths the T/S parameters on the woofer & he is running a simulation to determine the size & shape of the box necessary to house the woofers. then they will CUSTOM BUILD THE SUBWOOFER TO MY SPECIFICATIONS AND MR. BARNES IS ONLY CHARGING ME WHAT IS WOULD COST FOR ONE OF THEIR STANDARD SUBS!!!!! the only difference would be the cost of the scan speak woofer as opposed to the vifa woofer. i have never, ever received customer service like this from any other company.

Addenum: the above subwoofer story was actually written a couple of days ago - Yuths has since completed the simulation & it turns out that the sub w/ the vifa woofer actually has output of 2hz lower (24hz as opposed to 26hz), so I am in the process of buying the standard nOrh subs. I will post a follow up review once I have them set up & broken in.

To Conclude - the nOrh 7.0's are the best 2 way speaker I have heard yet (and I have heard a lot of the higher end models) Obviously we all have a different preferences in how we like music presented, but for me the 7.0s are close to perfect - fast, dynamic, great imaging, outstanding delineation of instruments and their tonality, good bass, no HF highlighting, and just barely on the warm side of neutral.

REVIEW: nOrh 7.0 Speakers Review by Tyson at Audio Asylum