Originally posted: Wed Jul 25, 2001 1:34 pm, at HD.
Okay. Okay. This is my initial impression of the nOrh Synthetic
Marble 6.9 speakers.
Let me start out by letting you know that I am in no way connecting, relating, or involving with any of the manufacturers and vendors in the audio biz. But I have been a music nut for life. I am just a music hobbyist like many of you reading this.
First. Right out of the rather large boxes. These nOrh Synthetic Marble 6.9's are entirly listenable. Just a tag cold sounding. But they will started becoming musically and emotionally involving, only after a few hours of initial running time. So. You don't need to go through the torture of long break-in period, before you can start enjoying them.
They started smoothing out after after 7, 8 hours of playing time, and keep getting better with every session. They sound incredible already, even after the few initial break-in hours. Even the full break-in will takes 200+ hours. So.You knowtheycan only get better.
The Front End:
My 2 channel music system front end set up: nOrh CD-1 tubed CD player,
connected with nOrh silver IC to nOrh ACA pre amp. Then, Groneberg
Quattro Reference IC connecting the ACA to the Odyssey Stratos
power amp (with 120k cap upgrade.)
The two Monitor Audio sub-woofers and CD juke-boxes (can't stand their sound
any more after I got the nOrh CD-1.) are not used for this review.
The MA subs are just used as speaker stands / supports for the SM 6.9. But
will be used with the SM 6.9 in the long term, and will review the differences
from this review on a later day.
The 6.9 SMs are connected to the Odyssey Stratos with the Supra Ply
3.4/S speaker cable.
* As I do not believe in ?tuning? how the system sound, with cables, sorcery,
voodoo, snake oil, etc. If the component is not neutral sounding. I don't
want it in my set up.
And yes. Cost is a major concern. Spare me with the marketing hypes, sweet
talks, philosophy, theory, and old wives tales. Blessed by Fabio or not. And, no robotic specs grinding, or Dumb Blind Tests by clueless robots either.
If you cannot hear any different between components. It's either you have hearing problem, or, your system is of mediocre quality.
But when you reach such a high quality level, such as the system in used here. You will hear every changes from within the system. Although this system here is a long way from being unaffordable, even it's not cheap by any mean. But still at a very affordable price point, and you won't be able to find a better system for at least3 to 4 times more in costs.
The proof must be in the pudding (how the resulting music - not pink noise - sounds.)
I do believe every single item in my set up has reach a near perfect match between every single component.
The synergy.
Also. Each single item represents the very best performance, design and built qualities, no nonsense, no BS, the maximum long term satisfaction returns for the money, that is never heard of, or exsisted in the high-end audio history. Also. I don't use the same handful of ?reference recordings? as favoured by so many ?high-end audio reviewers? I listen to all kinds of music, from all over the world.
No Dianne Krall. Old mono recordings of early Miles Davis. No "Smooth Jazz."
No MTV stuff. NY Yuppy's Chic, Etc. Etc. either. BTW. Don't fuzz too much over the "proper" speaker stands for the nOrh SM6.9. I think the speaker stands are not important at all! Just make sure they're strong and sturdy, and with enough weight and footing area on the base. My SM 6.9s are just sitting directly on top of the 2 MA subs, which are about 15 inches high, from the carpeted floor. They sound fine whether if I was sitting on the sofa (20 inches high,) or on the bar stool (about 28 inches high.) Another plus. In my opinion.
They're about 5 ft apart. About 5 ft away from the side walls. The rear tip
part of the tails of the SM 6.9s are about 3.5 ft away from the back wall (back side of the speakers.) With big basket with tall (about 4, 5 ft tall.) silk plants behind the space of the tail for backward sound diffusion, and deflection.
Listening position is about 12 ft away. With about 4 ft of space between my back and the back wall behind me.
The look:
I have to agree with Starlet. The pinkish-red and green swirls can be a bit darker. Then, the white sm will be more dramatic looking. Right now, they're fine, but can beimproved. They actually look very nice under indirect, but warm, soft lighting condition.
A lot of subtle characters and understated beaut quality with the synthetic marble material. But not as dramatic, profound, and classy looking as the real marble. The white synthetic marble kind of looks like the melted ice cream left on the bottom of a bowl of Napoleon Ice Cream Sundays, when you're done eating.
The fit and finish are very good. Nicely polished. The grill fabric is less tightly woven than the one on the ceramic piggies. So. The sound is quite transparent even with the grill in place. The front edges are slightly less smooth, when I ran my fingers along the
front edge. This is what Mr Barnes told me when I emailed him about some
slightly minor roughness on the front edge: "I can understand how there might be an imperfection towards the edge. This is the way the mold works. The speakers are pulled out of the mold so that the front is not smooth. We had someone suggest we could make
our mold differently but it is expensive and complex to make a new mold." But this minor imperfection is not noticeable when the grill is left on, or if you're listening to music. The SM 6.9s are still basically handicrafts, even they're made with synthetic marble. Hand-fitting is still the main manufacturing technique.
Once the music started playing. You'll forgot the speakers are even there!
The grill fabric is similar in texture and density of the window screen, or screen door. You know what I mean if you have lived in the US. It's more like a tight netting pattern than tightly woven-ed cloth fabric. The stainless steel legs sit squarely and evenly on the supporting surface. The 2 sets of binding posts are spaced nicely. They fit easily with the factory terminated banana plugs from Supra cable. With about 0.5 inch of clearance left between the end of the plug and the supporting surface. (The Supra factory banana plugs are big. As they can be switched from straight in, or at a 90 degree angle, or to pins in a matter of seconds. Very smart design.)
... I will continue to finish up the rest of the review. How they sound will be coming up soon in Part-2 of this review.
Stay tuned!
Part 2--
This is Part-2 of my initial impression review of the nOrh Synthetic Marble 6.9 loudspeakers.
-
The very first thing you'll notice about the SM 6.9 is the soundstage. It's HUMOUNGOUS! Every single square inch of space, from wall to wall, and floor to ceiling, has becomes a HUGH HALO-GRAPHIC, and totally SEAMLESS!
And with good recordings. The sound seems like extending BEYOND the boundary of the confined area within the wall physically on all four sides.
Music is alive and very dynamic. Especially the acoustic guitar and piano, in the hands of a well horned musician.
"Fast" is rather meaningless. You can go fast, but remains boring, lifeless as hell.
But putting fast and velocity together. It's kick-ass time. It's part of the equation of ATTACK and DECAY in musical term.
I will try to explain this phenomena as the best I can here.
Those with musical training will understand this easily, if not already. The ATTACK portion of Velocity is when you can FEEL the music note as HOW it was generated initially by the musician. I will use the acoustic piano as an example here:
It's the way HOW he hit a piano key. How much force he's using on each finger? At what angle of attack, where along the position of that piano key he hit? What did he do with his finger to control the tone of that note? Did he used the sustains pedal?
Now. The DECAY part of the equation:
How long he held down that note with his finger? How he release his finger from that key? How, and when did he release the sustain pedal, if it was used during the process.
Did he remove his finger right away after hitting the key? Did he also applies the mute pedal to speed up killing off the note? How fast the note stopped vibrating after he kills it?
I hope I have get the meaning / idea across here.
I'll try another example here:
You're cruising along on the Interstate freeway in your Porsche Turbo.
You're on your way to tear up some blacktops on some back canyon roads. The entrance to that canyon road you've chosen is coming up less than a km away. The whole area is deserted. With wide open view. No where cops can hide. So. You decided to open up your Porsche right away and exit the freeway into the canyon road. You down shifted and nailed the gas all the way. The tach climbed from 3,500 RPM cruising speed into 7,200 RPM in a split second. The turbo is now pumping at 1.7 bar . You immediately felt the massive acceleration, you're being pushed back into the seat, your eye balls feel like being pulled out from the eye sockets by gravity!
What a rush!
Then, a hairpin turn is coming up a third km away, you waited until the last moment, until you're 30 meters from the early apex, then, you do a series of rapid heel and toes down shifting to 2nd gear, just in time to bring the Porsche slow enough to enter the late apex safely, then you hit the gas pedal hard again, kicks the tail of the car out a bit to induce a controlled 4 wheels drift into the center of the hair pin turn; the steeling wheel is at full opposite lock, and as soon as you see the straight coming up while exiting the center of the hair pin turn, you aim the steeling wheel straight into the center, but biasing a bit to the left side of the road to compensate for the extra room still needed to correct the position of the car to the road, nail the gas hard, as the on going 4 wheel drift started regaining proper grips by the lyres on the road again.
Wow! What fun!
Just try to substitute the music note as the Porsche. And you are the driver. And all the motion and co-motion are involved in the example about.
Harmonic:
The standard piano has 7 octaves. Each octave consists of 7 full notes (the ivory keys - the white keys) ,and 5 half notes (the ebony - the black keys.)
Each key is connected to its own wire, tuned to its own frequency. With a felt lined wooden hammer for striking the cable when the key is being pressed. Then, the whole assembly is encased inside a big wooden box - The piano body Acting as a resonator to help amplify the sound generated by each piano wire. So. you're dealing with 84 different frequencies here.
It'll be an easy job if only having to deal with just the fundamental frequency of each note. But in the case of the piano. As soon as a single key is pressed. It'll cause vibration from everything inside the body. That means you are now dealing with all 84 notes. Their primary frequencies, the resonant , and how each and all of them are interacting and reacting to each others.
Now. A single frequency has turned into an extremely complex, rich, and more or less unpredictable (to the listeners ears.) concerto called HARMONIC. Because of this. The acoustic piano is one of the most difficult musical instrument to record, and reproduced accurately. This is why audio gear audition without a good acoustic piano recording is rather meaningless.
Get the CD "SPAIN" by MICHEL CAMILO & TOMATITO. And see for yourself. This CD also complicated the matter more with the addition of an acoustic guitar!
Also. Get the "MATCHBOOK" CD by Ralph Towner & Gary Burton on ECM Records. This was one of the very best analog recording, with a 12 strings acoustic guitar, and a vibraphone. With two truly expert musicians in charge. Absolutely magical music. The simple melody but extremely complex and dreamy harmonics are just breath-taking. Get it. You will love it!
These 2 CD will demonstrates what true dynamic, harmonic, speed, velocity and musical accuracy , and what truly excellent musianships are all about!
And from my set up. This CD will totally blows you away breathless!
The nOrh SM 6.9s are presenting me everything described from above vividly with the majority of my music I've tried.
With th nOrh SM 6.9. I can actually tell where the sound actually started at where the images are projected in the soundstage initially. and FEEL the air pressure builds up, and moves towards me in my listening area, and WHAT the sound was doing along the way in vividly 3 dimensional details, how that note vibrates,and created its harmonic, and how those harmonics are triggering , and blending with harmonics with all the other notes and their associating harmonics and resonating together. Forming their own little mini-concerts live along the way, before you hear how that final note sounded to your ears.
And if you can add all of the above together. And reproduce them correctly and accurately. The music becomes lively. The notes are dynamic, and have a bouncy feeling to them. Instead of just coming out ?smooth? and ear pleasing. But flat and lifeless, like so many mediocre audio gears are doing.
You can only get this lively dynamic and bouncy feeling of the music, if the WHOLE SYSTEM are well matched, and all can reproducer music AS IS. Without adding or subtracting anyway from the original source! That's why every single component in the chain MUST be totally neutral sounding. And just acts as a undistributed passage way for the music to pass through.
Some speakers can project a very similar, or bigger soundstage than the SM6.9. But many are not as seamless as the SM6.9. There're just too many high-end speakers out there that either project the layering separation too muddied, or too far apart. Like there's blocks of separated VACUUM space in between each layer.
Real music NEVER do that!
The nOrh SM 6.9 can do just about everything right with ease. Music sounds and feels like music. Not like coming out from some Hi-Fi. Oh yes. The nOrh SM 6.9 also reproduces music that will get you totally submerge and emotionally involved. It can triggers your imagination when the music is interesting.
Try the "VISIBLE WORLD" CD by JAN GARBAREK GROUP on ECM Records.
Dim the light. Sit down, shut off the phone. Relax, get a glass of wine, hit "PLAY" on your remote control and close your eyes...
Now you're back to the 330 B.C. You're in a caravan traveling from Istanbul to India. You have been traveling all night. Your caravan have 3 hours more to go before reaching the next oasis to bed down for the day, and 2.5 hours before the sun will be too hot for any traveling in the wide open desert. It's now 30 minutes away from sun rise. Your caravan is lost in the wide open desert. But the team can hear strange and mysterious sounds coming from the approaching oasis. Guiding your caravan to its direction.
Everybody is tired. But there musician in the caravan, and they started playing some simple but soft rhythmic music to try to keep the energy of the caravan up. First the musician started playing with their percussive instruments. Then, a wind instrument player joint in and started adding some simple, but extremely well refined and controlled melody to the rhythms. Now. The caravan's spirits are up again, as the musicians started inter-playing with each others, AND with the faintly mysterious sound that are fading in and out from the next oasis. Forming a very haunting sound scape right across the desert floor.
Then, a lady joint in with her very intriguing way of chanting. Now, the sun is rising on the horizon. The caravan has to revs up to beat the sun. So. Everybody was putting their full energy in. And the music now grew into a full forced session. Pace has picked up considerably too.
Just as when the sun is becoming too hot to go any further. The oasis appeared. Only a few more minutes away...
Everybody has safely arrived at the oasis, and started to eat, relax.
The camels now have been fed and ready to bed down for the day.
The lady kept chanting. Wondering what the next segment of their travel will be like?
.....Now. The day rest is over. The sun is now setting. Everybody have had their dinner, and ready, and started heading into the wide open desert in the night again, until the next morning comes...And the next oasis....
Now. Is that emotional involving or not!
Conclusion: The nOrh SM 6.9's are truly a tour de force in the entire audio industry. And is setting new reference standards as well.
Alex
