PreambleHad a chance to visit Danny recently and spent a few days listening to ALL the most recent OB offerings and thought I'd write up separate reviews for each of them. This review is for the NX-Treme.
Initial ImpressionsMan, this speaker is TALL. Taller than my Super 7s. Taller than the Line Force speakers. It's right at 7 feet tall!!! And you all know how I love tall speakers. Oh, this is gonna be fun. This uses the same tweeter and midrange setup as the NX-Ottica but it doubles the number of bass woofers.
Listening NotesWe started with the First Watt BA3 again but we figured it would not be a perfect match after our experience with that amp on the NX-Ottica towers. We were right - sounded good but not as good as it should have. So out goes the BA3 and in goes Elekit Japan 300b amp. Now we are cooking with gas! All the great things I said about the NX-Ottica applies here, but even more. World class imaging, bass, dynamics, clarity, power, scale, delicacy, you name it the NX-Treme does it better than just about anything out there. OK, I know you're going go ask - how does it compare to the Super 7? I hate to say it but it's a tossup. Haha, I never, ever thought I'd say that a speaker with a cone based midrange unit could keep up with my beloved planar drivers in the Super 7. Yet it does. There's a very slight edge to the Super 7 in ultimate speed and resolution, but the NX-Treme makes up for it with more power in the upper bass and lower midrange. Danny should be proud, this is an incredible achievement. I was skeptical that it could keep up with the Super 7 but it does so easily. Impressive.
And, like the NX-Ottica Towers, even though these are a tower speaker, they really need the servo OB subs for full range sound. We had the triple OB subs hooked up and they were a perfect match.
Edit to add: Here is a link to the some impressions that New Record Day had when visiting Danny's recently. You can hear that there's a tremendous overlap between what I heard and what they heard. So I'm not crazy! Haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYP-XErZHu4&t=4s