Update: The 2nd pair of NX-Treme cabinets is nearing completion. I had some complications with the flat packs again due to movement in the MDF from when it was machined. Once again, I was able to fix the issues with epoxy to fill gaps as well as modifying some of the parts slightly so that they fit better. I let Jay know about it and he called me. He was great to deal with and once again told me he would try to get me a replacement if I couldn't fix what I had. These NX-Treme flat packs are really a challenge to manufacture, package, and ship. If you order a set of these please have patience with Jay as they are kind of a nightmare to deal with. I can post pictures if people are interested, but it's mostly just a repeat of the same process as the first set. I will post this one picture after paint as the fall colors are pretty.
I have spent a huge amount of time getting my pair dialed in. They now have around 80 hours of burn in time - they aren't done yet, but I feel comfortable sharing some impressions now. Similar to the X-Statik's, it seems that my experience with these is somewhat different than what others have experienced. First - the bad stuff. I had been hearing that these speakers were very forgiving when it came to placement. That is not my experience at all. I have messed with speaker placement to a degree that I have never before needed with other speakers. Even an inch of movement makes a difference as does a very small degree of "toe in" rotation.
As you may have seen from a different post, I also had some difficulties with tweeter height. In my opinion, they are too high. For my room and my ears, the speakers needed to be dropped about 4" to achieve the best sound and the best imaging. I was able to achieve this because I have stadium seating in my theater/listening room. Right now the speakers are sitting on some rubber bumper plates, but I'm building a special stand that will include spikes to the floor and isolation pads under the speakers for both coupling and decoupling. I suspect the reason why tweeter height was an issue for me is because I'm listening to these extremely near field. My room is small(ish) for these speakers at 14x19 and the stadium floors make it very difficult to get separation between the speakers and the listening position. With the tweeters at about 5.5" above my ear when sitting as designed, the sound was going over my head and it just didn't sound right. I suspect at normal listening distances the height is not a problem and apparently Danny intentionally designed them so that your ears were at the level of the lower NQ driver. Every ear and room is different, and for me they sound significantly better lowered. I suspect that for most people if you do experience a little of this phenomenon you could tilt them forward slightly to compensate - the speakers are already built with a 3 degree backwards tilt so you could easily bring them at least close to vertical (you just have to worry about them tipping forward as all the weight is in the front of the cabinets).
On to the good stuff - and it's almost ALL good stuff. These speakers sound phenomenal. Unlike the x-statik's, which sounded extremely bright and lacked midrange until they broke in (at which point they sounded magnificent) these speakers sounded great immediately. No brightness or harshness, beautiful midrange and an absolutely massive soundstage. These things just put out the biggest wall of sound I've ever heard. The issue I had in the beginning was a little bit of a lack of bass as well as the imaging was off. Vocals were just sort of "in front of you" with no real pinpoint location. After the aforementioned speaker placement revisions, the imaging is now excellent. Also, as they have broken in the bass has improved - it has been hitting harder, deeper, and with more tone and texture. I expect this to continue to improve as they break in. Interestingly, they do not have as much bass (at least in my room) as the X-statik's did. That sealed section of the x-statik's really allows them to play low and hard. Despite having 8 woofers each, these really do need subwoofers to get that low extension. The midrange is so silky smooth it is divine. Everything sounds good on these - vocals, string instruments, reed instruments, percussion - it's all there. The highs are crystal clear without being harsh.
I have tried these on 3 different amps, my Primaluna Evo 300, Lyngdorf TDAI-2170 and a Doge 10 that belongs to the guy who the 2nd pair are for. I haven't had a chance to hook up the Doge since I got the speaker placement dialed in but I can tell you that I much prefer the sound of the tubes over the solid state Lyngdorf. The Lyngdorf is slightly cleaner with a little bit more detail but the PrimaLuna is so intoxicating in the vocals and string instruments as well as producing just an overall really sweet sound. The Lyngdorf sounded amazing with my Maggie's, but on these it's a little too analytical for my tastes.
Another experience I've had which differs from what I've read from others - these speakers (for me) are actually very *forgiving* of poor recordings. Do they highlight the flaws? Yes, they do. You will absolutely hear the flaws, but they manage to do it in such a way that it still sounds good. It's like if you have a grainy picture of your wife - if you enhance that photo you may see some wrinkles, maybe some stretch marks, but damn if it doesn't look good and you appreciate having that detail over the grainy picture.
Here is a picture of the system as it sits now:
Lastly, I did get a MiniDSP SHD unit. I know people have different opinions about room correction, but for me it has worked wonders. The trick is to get everything dialed in as well as you can *before* room correction. You can't rely on it to fix a terrible room. I have treated my room extensively with absorption and diffusion all over the place. Below you'll see a picture of my room response measured at my listening position - that is measured before room correction and you can see the filter design overlayed on top of it. I intentionally have the bass a little elevated, and could achieve a +/- 5 dB across the entire frequency response if I dropped the bass on the subwoofers a little bit. This way, the software doesn't need to work very hard to iron out the last few wrinkles. In my room the difference is dramatic. It goes from sounding fantastic to sounding phenomenal. It clears up a bunch of the remaining muddiness that wasn't fixed by the room treatments. It is not a small improvement and it's very easy to hear with the push of a button that will turn the correction on or off.
That's my review of the NX-Treme's. They are an absolutely exquisite sounding speaker that is end game for me and I expect to enjoy these speakers for a long time to come.
Thank you to Danny and Hobbs for all your help in getting my parts situation straightened out after UPS damaged my shipping box so badly that half my parts were missing. It's been a long wait to get these but with excellent customer service like that as well as an amazing final product it was all very worth it.
