Naim - NXT?
Posted by: Phill82 on 18 January 2004
At the risk of being thrown off the forum, I just want to make a few comments about NXT speakers, and see if you guys (are there any gals on the forum?) have any opinions.
I did a placement year last year as part of my degree course which involved working for a company who manufacturered NXT speakers. Whereas the speakers we made were anything but 'Hifi' in some respects, they did have other qualities that were in my opinion highly comendable. They actually reminded me of some of the attributes of a Naim system - they don't really image that well(!), due to the large source size and diffuse dispersion I guess. But they seem to present music in a kind of effortless fluidity that I've only heard from a Naim system. And if they are designed well then they time pretty impressively as well.
Which is a bit strange when you look at how they work - they involve a driver or exciter which moves just a small point on a panel, which then sets up a standing wave in the panel, whose movement produces the sound pressure. This doesn't sound like a great way to achieve good timimg if you've got to wait for a standing wave to build up before you hear anything, and then wait for it to die away again when the note stops. But in actual fact, you get the timing cues purely from the relativily weak initial impulse from the small part of the panel directly attached to the exciter. This is then reinforced by the sound radiated from the rest of the panel, which doesn't interfere, as one might expect, because its random nature means that it is incoherent with the initial direct signal, and therefore only adds. So as it only requires a very small and therefore light piece of panel to give the clues, timing can in actual fact be very impressive. And also they require no crossover (I talking about the largish 'full' range ones here really) which will also help timing. Of course all this requires the speaker to be well designed otherwise it will sound a mess.
Sorry I've rambled on rather, but has anyone heard an NXT speaker much, and would you agree with my assessment of them, or have I gone mad?
BTW I read an interview of Robin Marshall (grovel grovel) in a hifi mag a while ago and he said in that, that he though NXT was the way forward for high frequency drivers.
I did a placement year last year as part of my degree course which involved working for a company who manufacturered NXT speakers. Whereas the speakers we made were anything but 'Hifi' in some respects, they did have other qualities that were in my opinion highly comendable. They actually reminded me of some of the attributes of a Naim system - they don't really image that well(!), due to the large source size and diffuse dispersion I guess. But they seem to present music in a kind of effortless fluidity that I've only heard from a Naim system. And if they are designed well then they time pretty impressively as well.
Which is a bit strange when you look at how they work - they involve a driver or exciter which moves just a small point on a panel, which then sets up a standing wave in the panel, whose movement produces the sound pressure. This doesn't sound like a great way to achieve good timimg if you've got to wait for a standing wave to build up before you hear anything, and then wait for it to die away again when the note stops. But in actual fact, you get the timing cues purely from the relativily weak initial impulse from the small part of the panel directly attached to the exciter. This is then reinforced by the sound radiated from the rest of the panel, which doesn't interfere, as one might expect, because its random nature means that it is incoherent with the initial direct signal, and therefore only adds. So as it only requires a very small and therefore light piece of panel to give the clues, timing can in actual fact be very impressive. And also they require no crossover (I talking about the largish 'full' range ones here really) which will also help timing. Of course all this requires the speaker to be well designed otherwise it will sound a mess.
Sorry I've rambled on rather, but has anyone heard an NXT speaker much, and would you agree with my assessment of them, or have I gone mad?
BTW I read an interview of Robin Marshall (grovel grovel) in a hifi mag a while ago and he said in that, that he though NXT was the way forward for high frequency drivers.