I have been auditioning the demo pair of N1X speakers for several days now and I thought I would share my impressions with others. Right up front let me say that these things are really nice. I mean REALLY nice…
The GR Research Neo Series caught my eye because I’ve always been a fan of speakers with planar magnetic or ribbon tweeters. For whatever reason, this type of tweeter just pleases my ears. My current speakers are Magnepan MMGs which use planar magnetic tweeters and mid-woofers. In general, I really like the sound of the MMGs and have lived with them longer than with any other speaker. Placement can be a challenge due to the rear wave of the dipole design but once you lock them in they can sound really nice. With that said, I will also say that one nagging problem with these is that sometimes the rear wave can contribute a “fuzzy” or indistinct sound at certain times and frequencies. Not always a problem since it only rears its ugly heads occasionally but often enough to give me a reason to keep an open mind about returning to box speakers. In my system, the main speakers are supplemented by two subwoofers used to fill in below where the main speakers roll off. They are positioned left and right of the main speakers and are fed their corresponding L/R low level signals from the preamp while the main speakers are fed a full range signal. I find this approach to provide the cleanest signal path from source to speaker.
So, I unplugged the MMGs and plugged in the N1Xs, messed around with positioning and subwoofer settings for a while, actually quite a while, and voila! The N1Xs sound great. The high frequencies are smooth, refined, accurate, natural and absolutely musical. Unlike some of the metal dome tweeters I’ve heard, there is no sizzle, glare or any other nasty coming from the Neo tweeter that I can hear. The same can be said for the midrange. Vocals are to die for. Eva Cassidy, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart all sounded wonderfully natural. Heck, even Jon Anderson’s voice sounds smoother than I ever remember hearing. Moving on to the bass, I listened to some music with low end punch like The Kinks Low Budget, Heart Dreamboat Anne, Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Jackson Browne Hold out and felt it was good but a little loose for my liking. After some experimenting, I ended up stuffing each port with a rolled up sock (don’t worry they were clean ones!) and raising the subwoofer crossover point to match the resulting lower bass output from the N1Xs. Now the bass is sounding tight and punchy with plenty of PRAT (with help from the subwoofers).
The N1X with the Neo tweeter and M130 mid/woofer as implemented by Danny are outstanding and sound better than the stand mounted speakers I have tried before. These include: Paradigm Studio 40 v2 (treble too hot), Vienna Acoustics Haydn Grand (refined but too mellow) and Energy Acoustics RC-10 (lack of refinement).
Room and speaker position:
13ft X 21ft with no wall behind the listening position which means it’s really 13ft x 40ft. (My family room is open to the dinette and kitchen areas). The 13ft x 21ft family room area is carpeted and includes typical curtains, sofa, chairs, etc. Rear wall to N1X front baffle is 48”, side wall to baffle center is 38 inches. Speakers are parallel to the rear wall, no toe in. Listening position is 12 ft from the plane of the speaker baffles.
Equipment:
Music Hall MMF-7.1 / Dynavector DV20XH / Graham Slee Era Gold V / McCormack TLC-1 Deluxe & DNA 0.5 Deluxe / Mirage BPS150i subs (2) / XLO ER-11 speaker cables / VH Audio Pulsar interconnects.
LPs I listened to in no particular order:
Eva Cassidy, Songbird
Cat Stevens, Greatest
Al Stewart, Time Passages
Dave Mason, Let it Flow
Blood, Sweat & Tears, BS&T
Doors, Morrison Hotel
Alan Parsons, Eye in the Sky
Dire Straits, Dire Straits
Yes, Fragile
Kinks, Low Budget
Heart, Dreamboat Anne
Jackson Browne, Hold Out
Donald Fagen, The Nightfly
